#is

A woman isn't all that different from a bonfire. A fire's a beautiful thing, right? Something you can't take your eyes off, when it's burning. If you can keep it contained, it'll throw light and heat for you. It's only when it gets out of control that you have to go on the offensive. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#my-sister-s-keeper #woman #beauty

Everyone knows how to cook parasols—you soak them in milk, then dip them in egg and breadcrumbs and fry them until they're brown as chops. You can do the same thing with a panther amanita that smells of nuts, but people don't pick amanitas. They divide mushrooms into poisonous and edible, and the guidebooks discuss the features that allow you to tell the difference—as if there are good mushrooms and bad mushrooms. No mushroom book separates them into beautiful and ugly, fragrant and stinking, nice to touch and nasty, or those that induce sin and those that absolve it. People see what they want to see, and in the end they get what they want—clear, but false divisions. Meanwhile, in the world of mushrooms, nothing is certain. ↗

— Olga Tokarczuk

#beauty

The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, 'The children are now working as if I did not exist.' ↗

— Maria Montessori

#able #children #did #exist #greatest

At stake is a summons to see reconciliation not merely as a challenge of what "ought" and "should" be done but as an invitation from God to participate in what is most beautiful and true. ↗

— Chris Rice Emmanuel Katongole

#beauty

His kiss was fierce, desperate, and slow, drugging. A shudder passed through me, warming my body from the inside out. All my defenses dissolved. We started making out again and I let Trent slip his hand inside my top. This time, when he kissed me, something inside me awoke and a shudder warmed my skin. Our kisses got more passionate and hotter. His fingers slid over my bra, and a turbulent ache burned through my body. ↗

— Sherry Soule

#beauty

His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servants' hall. ↗

— J. M. Barrie

#equal #equality #hall #his #lordship

Divinity for the sake of the simple-minded is beautiful. Those theological assertions you write, say, or live by that you later feel foolish about, it means God still lives in you enough to tell you that they were indeed foolish. By mistakes you know you are alive. ↗

— Criss Jami

#assertions #beautiful #correction #divinity #foolish

For what do you hunger, Lord?” Moneo ventured. “For a humankind which can make truly long-term decisions. Do you know the key to that ability, Moneo?” “You have said it many times, Lord. It is the ability to change your mind. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#change

Nothing. It just finds you a lot more attractive than it does most Humans. What can you do with a beautiful woman that you can’t do with an ugly one? Nothing. It’s just a matter of preference. ↗

— Octavia E. Butler

#discrimination #beauty

You have this ability to find beauty in weird places. ↗

— Kamila Shamsie

#beauty #optimism #quality #weirdness #beauty