John Lewis

 "Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America."

Posthumous message from John Lewis

Freedom is Connection

 "The way I’ve come to understand it, freedom is both an individual and collective endeavor—a multilayered process, not a static state of being. Being free is, in part, achieved through being connected." Mia Birdsong puts it

New Old Summer

…and she tried to discover wherein this summer had been different from any and every other summer of her life. She could only realize that she herself—her present self—was in some way different from the other self.
 

— Kate Chopin

Respect is and is not about authority

"Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”
and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”
and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay."

Celeste Porter?

Beauty was not simply something to behold

"Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.” —Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

And I Am Quite Free

"I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." Georgia O'Keefe

New Yorks

"E.B. White said there were three New Yorks: the city of those who were born here, the city of those who commute in daily, and the city of those who come here 'in quest of something.' To this list, we may now add a fourth: The New York of those who stayed."

Do the thing or dont do it. Either is fine.

"Honestly, there is a lot to be said for tooling about all day, looking up recipes and not making them, not bothering to paint the living room and failing to write a novel. In the middle of the messy, non-event called your mid-afternoon, you might get something—a thought to jot down, a good paragraph, a piece of gossip to text a pal. Boredom is a productive state so long as you don't let it go sour on you. Try not to confuse the urge to get something done with the idea that you are useless. Try not to confuse the urge to contact someone with the thought that you are unloved. Do the thing or don't do it. Either is fine." —Ann Enright