#cage

I love you, Erik,” I whispered. “You don’t have to say it, too,” I hurried on, not giving him the chance to reply. “I know you were about to before, but I just wanted to tell you now, like this. I wanted you to know that it’s for real, and not because of anything that either one of us makes the other one say or do.” “I love you, Natalia,” he said in a confident tone. Then he laughed softly. “Man, I’ve never said that before. To anyone. Feels kinda weird. Weird in a good way,” he assured me. ↗

— Sophie Davis

#love

The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic admiration. ↗

— Maya Angelou

#feminism #i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings #masculity #maya-angelou #racism

You must not let me out,' it warned him gently, as it saw his eyes rest on the lock. 'If you release me now that I know my nature, I could not help but unmake the enchantment of the mirrors. You see, they are tame now and they show only what people want and need to see in them. The wildness of them is bound up in my form, though I did not know it for a long time. If I were uncaged, I could not help but tear at the enchantment until I was unnamed. Then I would fly into all of the mirrors and windows and into shining footpaths after rain. The mirrors would become wild and they would be absolutely, utterly truthful. Everything would be seen for what it truly was. My laughter would greet every lie and every pretense. It would rumble like a volcano under the smooth surface of everything. You can imagine the chaos it would cause here, for those who dwell in the greylands do so because the mirrors are tamed. If I were free, people would come to be afraid of them. They would cease to believe in their reflections and eventually they would no longer believe in themselves. No, laughter must remain caged here. ↗

— Isobelle Carmody

#laughter #lies #mirrors #imagination

I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#confidence #self-esteem #social-anxiety #anxiety

I felt caged by my childhood. ↗

— Christina Aguilera

#childhood #felt #i

You have to be a brat in order to carve out your parameters, and you have to be a monster to anyone who gets in your way. But sometimes it's difficult to know when that's necessary and when you're just being a baby, throwing your rattle from the cage. ↗

— Paul Thomas Anderson

#baby #being #brat #cage #carve

Everybody's a bird, locked up in a pretty cage. Sometimes you fly to a slightly bigger one, but you never quite have the courage to abandon captivity completely. ↗

— Dave McKean

#cage #freedom #courage

When I have a girlfriend, I feel caged in, I don't know why. ↗

— Scott Baio

#feel #girlfriend #i #i feel #know

Usually when you see females in movies, they feel like they have these metallic structures around them, they are caged in by male energy. ↗

— Bjork

#caged #energy #feel #females #like

What's cool is when you're able to give your audience imagination and you don't have to cage them in like animals. ↗

— Shia LaBeouf

#audience #cage #cool #give #imagination