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Upright Women Wanted
Sarah Gailey
Top 10 Best Quotes
“When there's people around that we don't trust, we let them think we're the kinds of people who are allowed to exist. And the only kind of Librarian that's allowed to exist is one who answers to she.”
“She wanted that satisfaction. She wanted it for herself wanted it like a half-starved alley-rat watching that table through a window on a bellyaching night. She didn't know how to get it—but she had a feeling that if she stuck with the Librarians for long enough, she might be able to figure it out. How to feast instead of starving. How to like the person who she was instead of fighting it.”
“Not the question Cye had asked—do you believe everything you read?—but the question they hadn’t asked: why do you believe everything you read?”
“You really believe all that? About how there’s only one end in sight for people like you?” Amity said, tipping her chin back toward the sky and pulling her hat partway down her face, so only her nose and mouth were visible. “Horseshit. You only think that because you’ve never seen different.” Esther started to reply, but Amity held up a still-bloody finger. “Don’t interrupt me, pup. You know I’m right. You’re a woman and you love people who aren’t men, is that right?” Esther hesitated to make sure she wasn’t interrupting. “That’s right,” she said, “but—” “No but, it’s just true,” Amity said, proving that her rule about interruptions only ran in one direction. “And you’ve only ever read stories about people like you, right? You’ve never met one of your kind before now. Well, except for Beatriz,” she added. “Ain’t that so?” “Yeah,” Esther answered reluctantly. She sensed a trap coming, but she couldn’t figure out how to step around it. “All those stories you’ve read,” Amity said softly, pulling her hat back off her eyes by a few degrees. “Who gave ’em to you?”
“Keep fighting. It will be hard, and it will be awful, and it will be worth it. Don’t give up, even when it feels like dying. Don’t give up. This is only the beginning.”
“She had seen a man decide that she deserved to die and she had killed him for it.”
“She didn't relish being called "sweetheart," but something deep in her chimed at the word: this was a man who would let her go, if she was nice and pliant and didn't cause trouble. This was a man who wanted her to be the kind of woman who liked to hear "sweetheart," and that was a role she knew how to play.”
“She couldn’t rightly say that this wasn’t going according to plan, since there hadn’t been much of a plan in the first place, but it certainly wasn’t going the way she’d hoped it might.”
“Penny for your thoughts?’ Esther would have charged a great deal more than a penny for the kinds of thoughts that entered her mind at the way Cye looked up at the stars.”
“It was a truth that didn't feel anything like safety. It felt better than safety. It felt like gunpowder at her back, driving her toward a fight that needed winning. Keep fighting. It will be hard, and it will be awful, and it will be worth it. Don't give up, even when it feels like dying. Don't give up. This is only the beginning.”
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Book Keywords:
patriarchy, feminism, inspirational, hope, queer-politics, queer