“Ah can’t be scared to be me. Ah wouldn’t call dat brave.”
“What yuh call it, then?”
“Existing?”
– Patsy, Nicole Dennis-Benn

Question everything anyone ever says to you or forces down your throat or makes you write a hundred times on the blackboard. Question every man that opens his mouth and spews out a law over your body and spirit. Question every single thing until you find the answer in a daydream. Don’t question yourself unless you hurt someone else. When you hurt someone else, sit down, and think, and think, and think, and then make it right. Apologize when you fuck up. Live forever…

Do not be afraid. Do not doubt yourself. Do not hide…

Love your fat, fucking glorious body…

Read all the books that make you whole. Read all the books that pull you out of the present and into the future. Read all the books about women who get tattoos, and break hearts, and rob banks, and start heavy metal bands. Read every single one of them. Kiss everyone. Ask first…

Trust the Universe. Trust your damn self. Love hard, deep, without restraint or doubt. Love everything that brushes past your skin and lives inside your soul. Love yourself.

– Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera

Never listen to fear! Fear makes you stupid. – The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George

When people were afraid, they did not always do what they knew to be right. They turned away. They closed their eyes. They said, Tomorrow. Tomorrow, perhaps, I’ll do something about it. And they said that until they died. – Liesl & Po, Lauren Oliver

Nobody is so frightening once you stop and listen. – The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce

Out there might be dark places to be afraid of and lonely islands to escape from and terrifying heights to fall down, but what also awaits are more places to see and people to know and friends to make and experiences to share, and what could be more worth the pain than to open up and let yourself be a part of a sweeping story? – The Luster of Lost Things, Sophie Chen Keller

Of course you are afraid, the monster said, pushing him slowly forward. And yet you will still do it. – A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness

Cease with being afraid. And begin doing something about it! – The Rose & the Dagger, Renée Ahdieh

The only way to control what scares you is to embrace it. – The Harvest, K. Makansi