If you survive, you have to prove it was that bad; or else, they think you are. Surviving is some kind of sin, like floating up off the dunking stool… - Roxane Gay

We all have history. You can think you’re over your history. You can think the past is the past. And then something happens, often innocuous, that shows you how far you are from over it. The past is always with you.

I am hyperconscious of how I take up space and I resent having to be this way, so when people around me aren't mindful of how they take up space, I feel pure rage . . . The ease with which they take up space feels spiteful and personal.

People in town didn't understand Anna and largely believed her to be godless, a designation she rather enjoyed because she understood that in their community, to be godless was to have a mind of one's own.