" I'd have to be impolite, an inconvenience, and sometimes awkward. But if I could commit, all that discomfort would add up to zap predatory threads like a Taser gun. I'd stun them. They'd bow to me. I'd let my no echo against the mountains.

And better to feel bad for a moment saying no—and stop it—than to get harmed.

I would take better care.

That small word, no. I'd see its deity. "

― Aspen Matis , Girl in the Woods: A Memoir