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1 " None of us has an obligation to accept the definitions of ‘respect’ and ‘gratitude’ our parents espoused, especially when those definitions can be used to guilt-trip us, or when they are being used for the purpose of forcing us to do certain things (as an extortion mechanism). "
― Lukasz Laniecki , You Have The Right Not To Make Your Parents Proud. A Book Of Quotes
2 " Beauty" and sexuality are both commonly misunderstood as some transcendent inevitable fact; falsely interlocking the two makes it seem doubly true that a woman must be " beautiful" to be sexual. That of course is not true at all. The definitions of both " beautiful" and " sexual" constantly change to serve the social order, and the connection between the two is a recent invention. "
3 " It is not within my power to refuse the journey of life regardless of the nature of my fears or the depth of my selfishness, for the definitions of ‘journey’ and ‘life’ are indistinguishably synonymous. I can however sufficiently inhibit them and amply fight them to the point that I have accepted the journey, but the journey is now solely defined as my effort to forsake the journey. "
― Craig D. Lounsbrough , An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus
4 " I wanted to ask my father about his regrets. I wanted to ask him what was the worst thing he'd ever done. His greatest sin. I wanted to ask him if there was any reason why the Catholic Church would consider him for sainthood. I wanted to open up his dictionary and find the definitions for faith, hope, goodness, sadness, tomato, son, mother, husband, virginity, Jesus, wood, sacrifice, pain, foot, wife, thumb, hand, bread, and sex. " Do you believe in God?" I asked my father." God has lots of potential," he said." When you pray," I asked him. " What do you pray about?" " That's none of your business," he said. We laughed. We waited for hours for somebody to help us. What is an Indian? I lifted my father and carried him across every border. "
5 " Some do magic, some are god. Most seems a lie, yet most is true. It all depends on the definitions of words within ones illusion of the world. "
6 " There is no dictionary in the world that includes the words ’skinny’ or ‘fat’ under the definitions of ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’. So, focus on being healthy and stop the self-criticism. "
― Maddy Malhotra , How to Build Self-Esteem and Be Confident: Overcome Fears, Break Habits, Be Successful and Happy
7 " Bullshit. You can paint with a fork, you can kill with a fork. A fork is a tool. Don't let yourself be confined by the definitions of others. "
― ,
8 " Rebelling against the status quo was one of the definitions of conservatism. "
― Rick Perlstein , Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
9 " I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of light, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings. "
― Gloria E. Anzaldúa , Interviews/Entrevistas
10 " Nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all things to fulfill its own. "
― Anthony Marra , A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
11 " We play into the definitions and stereotypes others impose on us and accept the model-minority myth, thinking it's positive, but it's a trap just like any stereotype. They put a piece of model-minority cheese between the metal jaws of their mousetrap, but we're lactose intolerant anyway! We can't even eat the cheese. "
― Eddie Huang , Fresh Off the Boat
12 " A friend or an enemy can tell me something about my subjective being, a casual lover can judge my body — the man I love judges my entire being. Every one of his caresses tells me how I am: attractive, desirable. Every one of his questions and answers tells me what I am: a person with whom he wants to enjoy himself, who interests him more than all the others he knows. By choosing me among all others, my love has made me unique; I alone in all the world am the one he loves, and no other. If I am lucky in love, the definitions become more precise from day to day; after each date I know even better than before what I want to know about myself. The others can say what they like about me; I don't have to believe a word of it. Only the one I love can tell me about myself. Since his definitions grow increasingly precise, my dependence on him also grows more acute as time goes on, but he is in the same position with regard to me. I tell him that I belong to him alone, that he can do with me what he likes, that I cannot live without him. "
― Esther Vilar , The Polygamous Sex
13 " In a basic sense, 'A Little Life' is a homage to how my friends and I live our lives. I wanted to push past the definitions of how we typically define friendship. It's a different version of adulthood, but it's no less important and no less legitimate than anyone else's. "
14 " One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition. "
