Jacquelyn Brooks;

It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald (via themoonflowers)

(Source: gordftw, via so-divine)

You either like me or you don’t. It took me twenty-something years to learn how to love myself, I don’t have that kinda time to convince somebody else.

—Daniel Franzese (via bbyk)

(Source: overlysensitivestudent, via bbyk)

What kind of world do we live in when young men are so proud of violating unconscious girls that they pass proof around to their friends? It’s the same kind of world in which being labeled a slut comes with such torturous social repercussions that suicide is preferable to enduring them. As a woman named Sara Erdmann so aptly tweeted to me, “I will never understand why it is more shameful to be raped than to be a rapist.”

And yet it is: so much so that young men seem to think there’s nothing wrong with—and maybe something hilarious about—sharing pictures of themselves raping young women. And why not? Their friends will defend them, as they did in Steubenville, tweeting that the young woman was “asking for it” and that the boys were being unfairly targeted.

Women and girls are the ones expected to carry the shame of the sexual crimes perpetrated against them. And that shame is a tremendous load to bear, because once you’re labeled a slut, empathy and compassion go out the window. The word is more than a slur—it’s a designation.

—“In Rape Tragedies, the Shame Is Ours,” my latest at The Nation (via jessicavalenti)

(via amyw1nehouse)

People are screwed up in this world. I’d rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and ready to explode.

—Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind of a Funny Story   (via dirtylittlestylewhoree)

(Source: stxxz.us, via dirtylittlestylewhoree)