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41 " It's difficult for women to be honest and direct because for centuries we were burned at the stake, or persecuted, or exiled, or rejected, or excommunicated, or divorced, or shamed, or socially excluded, for saying what we truly thought and felt. Now, we know how to act like we're being direct and forthright, when we're not, and we know how to seem uninhibited and free, when we're not, and we know how to appear helpless and damaged, when we're not. Deception is more ingrained in us than honesty. "
― Madeleine Ryan , A Room Called Earth
42 " Oh dear. My heart always starts racing as I approach the future audience to the fact of my existence. "
43 " People are so attracted to what harms them. Being infatuated, and obsessed, and jealous, and tormented, and competitive, and longing for things, and wanting to possess people, and dying and killing for love, is deemed to be romantic, and sensual, and liberated. Yuck. "
44 " True respect requires communication, and creativity, and the integration of values that at first seem foreign, which then gain meaning as we come to understand and appreciate them. "
45 " I tried putting chopsticks from the kitchen drawer into my hair and it felt like it was over doing things a bit, so I put them back. I even considered painting the chopsticks black because they were brown, and black would’ve suited my outfit better. Yet the fact that I considered painting them at all caused me to be embarrassed at myself, so I decided to ditch the accessories that were at one time used to stuff pad Thai into someone’s face. Painted or not, you can’t change the reality of what chopsticks are or the main way that they’ve been used for, like, centuries. Eons, even. So let a chopstick be a chopstick, and my hair can be what it is, too. "
46 " And, right now, from my perspective, the people who are going to be there are made up of Futuristic Shadow Beasts Without Faces that are deeply impressed by me. "