#cage

The Obamas, especially Michelle, have radiated the sense that Americans do not appreciate what they sacrifice by living in a gilded cage. They've forgotten Rule No. 1 of politics: No one sheds tears for anyone lucky enough to live at the White House. ↗

— Maureen Dowd

#appreciate #cage #enough #especially #forgotten

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. ↗

— Richard Lovelace

#cage #iron #make #nor #prison

I bought a zoo, which is funny, because I own the very place that should own me. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#own #zoo #funny

Hunting hawks did not belong in cages, no matter how much a man coveted their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They were far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful. ↗

— Lois McMaster Bujold

#cage #hawk #miles-vorkosigan #unrequited-love #warrior-s-apprentice

And then a strange thing happened. Out of the diseased and deteriorated pool os tired thoughts came life. A simple and poisoned life, but a life nonetheless. Death cultivated tis bacteria with love and attention. It thived in its stifling, hopeless world, sapping Death os all its energy, but Death didn't notice, for all its attention went on the fracturing, multiplying, fragmentary creations inside it. And when the virus had eaten every fleck of Death, it lived on in Death's dry sarcophagus. Life implied by Death. ↗

— Dave McKean

#death #life #death

I know I have to give her that freedom. Otherwise I’ve just caged her, haven’t I? And what kind of love would it be, that only came from inside a box? ↗

— Jane Lovering

#freedom #love #freedom

If it weren’t for her setting me free, I may still be a caged bird today, holding my own daughter captive on a shit-laden perch. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#breaking-free #caged-bird #cycles #freedom #motherhood

You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-You-Are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you're terrified somebody's going to stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somaliland. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself. ↗

— George Axelrod

#caged-bird #free-spirit #holly-golightly #wild-thing #life

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