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1 " Marriage without love is just one more twisted form of slavery. "
― Margarita Engle , The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist
2 " I am aloneand my heartis my own.Loneliness.Solitude.The first is a curse,the second a blessing.I would rather be a hermitthan live with a strangerwho would make me feeleven more lonelythan when I amtrulyalone. "
3 " I enjoy peaceful moments when the whole world seems to be flowing river of verse and all I have to do is learn how to swim. "
4 " I envy the trees that grow at crossroads. They are never forced to decide which way to go... "
5 " Some people are born with words flowing in their veins. "
6 " Opinions. Ideas. Possibilities. So many! How can I choose? Between bursts of lightning-swift energy, I enjoy peaceful moments when the whole world seems to be a flowing river of verse and all I have to do is learn how to swim. "
7 " People assume that menmake all the rules, but sometimesmothers are the ones who commandgirls to be quietwhile they arrangefor us to be soldlike oxen or mules. "
8 " I sing without knowing what my song means, and whether the listening world is amazed or wounded. "
9 " I think of my feather penas something magicalthat still belongsto a wing.All I needis paper, ink,and the courageto let wild words soar. "
10 " But love is a wildly unpredictable hurricane wind, not a swirling blue ocean with peaceful shores. "
11 " I feel certain that words can be as human as people, alive with the breath of compassion. "
12 " I feel at home, choosing to live inside my own imagination, savage and natural, yet I also long to be honest about my desire to love and be loved. Am I an unearthly creature, part vampire, part werewolf? Or perhaps... poetry is my beastly mind's only curse. "
13 " What more do I need? I don't know how my book will end. All I know is that love is not the modern invention of rebellious young girls. Love is ancient. A legend. The truth. "
14 " Monster!Bookworm!Unnatural!Professor!Genius!Atheist!The insults my mother screecheshave no limit.Atheist? No. Love is God'sboldest creation.Surely, angels on cloudsmust gaze down and smileeach time a girl on earthrefuses a marriagebased on love'sabsence. "
15 " Why can't she see that no two peopleare exactly alike? Our hearts and mindsare all different.Only our dreams sharethis same desperate needto riseand soar... "