We make ourselves large or small, here or there, in our empathies. - Rebecca Solnit

I disappeared into books when I was very young, disappeared into them like someone running into the woods.

The worst criticism seeks to have the last word and leave the rest of us in silence; the best opens up an exchange that need never end.

Liberation is always in part a storytelling process: breaking stories, breaking silences, making new stories. A free person tells her own story. A valued person lives in a society in which her story has a place.