Stephanie

“It was what we did," Helen [Clyne, Kate Atkinson's daughter] said. "It was a habit, a ritual. You borrowed it, you read it, you brought it back and chose something else, and someone else read whatever you read before and after you. It was communal. That's what public library means: something communal.”
― Ali Smith

“Every possible decision modern women make or the role they occupy, outside of the most rigorous and regressive, can be tied back to the very symptoms of witchcraft: refusal of motherhood, rejection of marriage, ignoring traditional beauty standards, bodily and sexual autonomy, homosexuality, aging, anger, even a general sense of self-determination. (From Carmen Maria Machado's introduction, page 11)”
― Carmen Maria Machado