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1 " I don't belong to you ... You thought if I married you that I would, but I don't. I don't belong to any man ... I only belong to myself. But belonging to myself doesn't mean I don't love you or that I don't want to stand beside you. "
― Christina Henry , The Mermaid
2 " Love does that. It changes you in ways that can't be undone "
3 " Until I became human, nobody ever told me there was something wrong with my body. "
4 " What's a savage?" Amelia said. "Someone who doesn't live as you do? Someone who doesn't have gaslight ans hows and cobblestoned streets?"Levi took a breath and tried again. "These are simple people who haven't been exposed to-""And why is simple something that needs to be fixed? Why must all people everywhere be cast in the same mold?" Amelia said. "
5 " The ocean has a rhythm, but it has no heart. "
6 " Women who did what they liked instead of what other people wished were often accused of witchcraft, because only a witch would be so defiant, or so it was thought. "
7 " Humans often valued what they should not, she reflected, and most often they did not value what was right before their eyes. "
8 " Men generally don't recognize the authority of women", Levi said very gently. "It's the way of the world, Amelia. I'm sorry it distress you.""The world", Amelia said, "is wrong about so many things. "
9 " Humans, Amelia knew, would do anything for belief. They would proselytize from the highest mountain for belief. They would collect like-minded people and form mobs for belief. They would kill one another for belief. "
10 " They wanted the moon, but they hadn't realize it cost the earth. "
11 " Why is a girl less valuable than a boy?” Amelia asked. She'd heard this before and did not understand it. Did not women bear the next generation? Was not that power more profound than anything a man could do? “Men like to have sons to carry on their name,” Charity said. “They aren't men otherwise. "
12 " All she'd found was that women spent a great deal of time saying they were please when they were not, similing when they were not happy, and pretending their anger and frustation did not exist "
13 " Do not mistake the revelation of my body for the revelation of my heart. My heart keeps its own secrets, and they don't belong to you or anyone else just because you've seen me with a fish tail. "
14 " but it was easier to be brave when you had nothing to lose. "
15 " The faster she ran, the freer she was, fast and free and far away from everything that hurt. "
16 " Freedom was far more intoxicating than safety could ever be. "
17 " And I told you it was my choice", [she] said. "But I was too foolish to understand what I was choosing. "
18 " she had found her freedom and she loved it, and she would not be bound to someone else’s will again. "
19 " Every human who saw it remarked on its size, but to Amelia it looked like a very small container compared to the ocean. "
20 " People want to believe in mermaids. "