Jessa Quotes

You have no idea what I would do to keep you safe, Jessa. No idea. ~ Jaymin Eve

If there ever were one moment where everything worked for us, where we lived in harmony and at ease with our natures, then we would still be there. There is no garden to return to, no idyllic perfect childhood, no enwombed state. The Garden of Eden was boring, childhood is a nightmare we should all be grateful to be done with, and your mother smoked while she was pregnant and poisoned you in the womb with artificial sugar substitutes. The best thing any of us can do is just to keep fucking up in a forward motion, and see what comes out of it. ~ Jessa Crispin

I would have given it up
all of it up
to be married to you for a day. A day that would never have come. You are a reminder
a reminder of everything I am losting. The Life I will not have. ~ Cassandra Clare

My belief that the publishing industry is run by prigs and cowards dates back to many years before I even had the idea for the book. ~ Jessa Crispin

Reclamation is hard work. Finding the value in your group's characteristics means always having to confront the darkness in those characteristics. For example, it is acceptable, and productive, to think of America as a great nation. It has many great characteristics, from the freedom it grants its citizens to the cultural contributions it has fostered and rewarded. But by unearthing America's good qualities, you will also find its destructive qualities. The way it has interfered internationally and created death and misery for countless citizens of other nations, its history of genocide and slavery, and so on. It is possible to know America's destructive power and still think it is a great nation. But some prefer not to look at all, so as to avoid the cognitive dissonance. It ~ Jessa Crispin

I don't think that if I had spent the time that I was in, say, Belgrade, writing about my time in Trieste, which is where I had just been, that would have been productive. I told myself: take extensive notes while you're there, do the research part of it, and then pray, pray, the muses will be available when the actual 'ready' happens. ~ Jessa Crispin

Tessa, he said. Even when I cannot see, you are so beautiful. ~ Cassandra Clare

The Four are here. They just requested permission to enter the perimeter. I need to spell Jessa now."
I let out a large sigh. "Those assholes could not wait until after breakfast, seriously." My parents' horror-filled eyes locked on me. "What? A girl's got to eat. It's just rude. ~ Jaymin Eve

My dragon decided that no one hurts his Jessa."

Eve, Jaymin (2015-01-29). Dragon Marked: Supernatural Prison #1 (p. 41). . Kindle Edition. ~ Jaymin Eve

I don't tell clients what to do. I don't even really tell them what the future is. ~ Jessa Crispin

I believe in free will. ~ Jessa Crispin

Women have participated in almost every fight for freedom. They were there when civilians were targeted they were there when the bombs were planted. To argue they didn't have enough power to speak up or they had been brainwashed by their male colleagues is to try to disassociate from the darkness that resides in everyone. And to disassociate from your darkness is to lose your power over it. ~ Jessa Crispin

Dear Jessa, I've started this letter so many times and I've never been able to finish it. So here goes again . . . I'm sorry. I'm sorry that Riley is dead. I'm sorry for ignoring your emails and for not being there for you. I'm sorry I've hurt you. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish it had been me that died and not Riley. If I could go back in time and change everything I would. I'm sorry I left without a word. There's no excuse for my behaviour but please know that it had nothing to do with you. I was a mess. I haven't been able to talk to anyone for months. And I felt too guilty and didn't know how to tell you the truth about what happened. I couldn't bear the thought of you knowing. I got all your emails but I didn't read them until last week. I couldn't face it and I guess that makes me the biggest coward you'll ever meet. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never replied. You needed me and I wasn't there for you. I don't even know how to ask your forgiveness because I don't deserve it. I'm just glad you're doing better. I'm better too. I've started seeing a therapist – twice a week – you'd like her. She reminds me of Didi. I never thought I'd be the kind of guy who needed therapy, but they made it a condition of me keeping my job. She's helped me a lot with getting the panic attacks under control. Working in a room the size of a janitor's closet helps too – there aren't too many surprises, only the occasional rogue paperclip. I asked for the posting. I have to thank you ~ Mila Gray

Talk to people who know more than you. I feel like we're in this stupid sea of opinion, like "My opinion is valid because it's mine and I have it." ~ Jessa Crispin

He had our Jessa, and blood would rain across the world until we got her back. ~ Jaymin Eve

It is our entire culture, the way it runs on money, rewards inhumanity, encourages disconnection and isolation, causes great inequality and suffering, that's the enemy. That is the only enemy worth fighting. ~ Jessa Crispin

It's about passion, about allowing yourself to be overwhelmed, allowing a love to be feral without needing to domesticate it. Loving something or someone for what or who it is, not what you want it to be. That takes an enormous amount of strength and integrity. Which ties back in with the calling: allowing something to be scary, to be overwhelming; to devote yourself to it even if it requires great changes from you. It's something we have to live up to; it does not arrive neatly wrapped up in an understandable package. That would be easy. And the Lovers is always hard. RECOMMENDED ~ Jessa Crispin

Jessa is out of cake," I murmured. Which was our code for "Jessa is out of cake, get her some freaking cake, she's actually going to kill someone if she doesn't get some cake. ~ Jaymin Eve

When one day fate visits us again, Jessa comes running into Hannah's house to tell us the news that they've caught the serial killer. Her tone is hushed and I try hard not to look at Jude, who is working on the skirting boards. But I can feel the humour in his gaze as it falls on me and I know that I will never live down the fact that I suspected him.
When I ask her, "Who?" slightly curious, she's already out the door looking for Hannah and Tate. "No one important!" she shouts from the other room. "Just some postman in Yass." I look at Jude's face and I see it whiten and we vow never ever to tell the others. ~ Melina Marchetta

Hannah, do you think that your mum and dad and Tate's mum and dad and my mum and dad and Webb and Tate are all together someplace?' she asks earnestly.
I look at Hannah, waiting for the answer. And then she smiles. Webb once said that a Narnie smile was a revelation and, at this moment, I need a revelation. And I get one.
'I wonder,' Hannah says. ~ Melina Marchetta

Do you know that maxim "Write what you know"? Nonsense. That saying lets us off the hook for our more narcissistic impulses and for not trying to understand the world around us. The more a person learns - and this does not mean you need to get a PhD before you can work, merely that you nurture your curiosity and imagination - the more nuanced and complex his or her work becomes. Think ~ Jessa Crispin

according to a brief perusal of women writer's comments online over the past few days, men are: overly confident, predatory, helpless, psychopaths, terrified of women, fascists, the reason why the world is in this mess, literally so stupid, and the problem here. Of course what these women really mean is that they themselves are not overly confident, not predatory, not helpless, and on down the line. It's just easier to say that men are these things, than that you are not these things. People would rightly become suspicious if you suddenly started going on about how amazing you were. They'd start looking for proof you weren't. But by attributing these negative behaviors and traits to your "opposite" group, it's an easy, criticism-proof way of saying, "I would never behave like this, I would never be like this." And ~ Jessa Crispin

The life we've fashioned in this time is a singular one. One minute you're a child and you have no control over your life, the next you're an adult with responsibilities and no control over your life, and then you're an elder with wisdom, a wealth of experience...and no control over yourself or your life. ~ Jessa Callaver

I understand maybe some people are more impressionable than my hard, cynical self, but maybe they need to figure out how to be less of that. ~ Jessa Crispin

Nora Barnacle is not a very interesting person." So said Richard Ellmann, author of the definitive James Joyce biography, to Brenda Maddox, author of the only Nora Barnacle biography, who quoted him to me. ~ Jessa Crispin

It is always easier to find your sense of value by demeaning another's value. It is easier to define yourself as 'not that,' rather than do an actual accounting of your own qualities and put them on the scale. ~ Jessa Crispin

I've never felt this way before, Jessa,' he says. 'I don't want to fuck it up. ~ Mila Gray

Being unconscious is the ultimate disability. ~ Jessa Gamble

There are advantages to being labeled the victim. You are listened to, paid attention to. Sympathy is bestowed upon you. ~ Jessa Crispin

I never asked anybody to take me seriously. ~ Jessa Crispin

I think you still love me,' he says, 'even though you don't want to.'
I glare at him, fury battling my instincts.
'Because that kind of love, Jessa,' Kit continues, 'doesn't just disappear. It doesn't just fade. I still love you. I'll always love you. And I think you feel the same way about me. And hell, I know I don't deserve it. I know all I deserve is your hatred. But if there's a chance, a single chance that you might still love me, then I'm not going to throw it away. Because I've been through hell and you're the only reason I'm still standing.' He pauses. 'So tell me the truth. Do you love him? ~ Mila Gray

I was twenty-one when I was hired by Planned Parenthood. It was my first work experience outside of either temping or working for my father at his store. ~ Jessa Crispin

You don't have to go to New York and you don't have to go to LA or London. Go somewhere cheap. Go somewhere with free art museums and then just go to art museums. ~ Jessa Crispin

She glanced over at Zachariah, who was busy patting Church. The cat had climbed up onto the champagne table and was gleefully knocking over glasses. Her look was one of exasperation and fondness mixed together. ~ Cassandra Clare

I would slay myself on the altar of boredom if given the chance. ~ Jessa Crispin

I have a really good life and I really like it. ~ Jessa Crispin

I have yet to get sued. My father thinks I should get liability insurance. ~ Jessa Crispin

Radical change is scary. It's terrifying, actually. And the feminism I support is a full-on revolution. Where women are not simply
allowed
to participate in the world as it already exists - an inherently corrupt world, designed by a patriarchy to subjugate and control and destroy all challengers - but are actively able to re-shapeit. Where women do not simply knock on the doors of churches, of governments, of capitalist marketplaces and politely ask for admittance, but create their own religious systems, governments, and economies. My feminism is not one of incremental change, revealed in the end to be The Same As Ever, But More So. It is a cleansing fire. ~ Jessa Crispin

Women still get angry at me. I mean, men go after me sometimes, but most of the bad responses come from women. ~ Jessa Crispin

But here's a little secret: man cannot live on rationality alone. ~ Jessa Crispin

Safety is about control. In order to feel safe, things have to be made predictable. And the only way in life to make something predictable is to control the outcome ~ Jessa Crispin

Why would you have a work day that does not respond to shorter or longer day length? There's something that we lose, taking our schedules away from that locally relevant rhythm. ~ Jessa Gamble

I'm someone who needs more sleep than average, and I'm quite jealous of people who need only five or six hours and they're good to go. ~ Jessa Gamble

I don't think you can write an experience as you're having it without being an idiot. ~ Jessa Crispin

This is the way dissent is handled in feminist realms: a contrary opinion or argument is actually an attack. This stems from the belief that your truth is the only truth, that your sense of trauma and oppression does not need to be examined or questioned. In ~ Jessa Crispin

The culture of the U.S. military is such that human enhancement is accepted as a goal, taking people beyond the norm. There are so many resources going into that kind of research. ~ Jessa Gamble

Maybe the trick is not to define yourself as a container for your experiences, your thoughts. Maybe it's to assume you are larger than the things you have felt over a series of years, that your history is not a list of things your body has done or been present for, that your family is not people who you spent a lot of time around as a child or carry your genetic code. Maybe the trick is to push violently at your own boundaries, to find your own contradictions, and use your teeth and nails to destroy what separates you from something else.

I am trying. ~ Jessa Crispin

So you are dying for love, then, Will said finally, his voice sounding constricted to his own ears.
'Dying a little faster for love. And there are worse things to die for. ~ Cassandra Clare

I would never tell anybody to get a divorce. ~ Jessa Crispin

I don't think that I can be settled and I don't think that I would ever want to be. ~ Jessa Crispin

We can't feel the rotation of the planet, but in some ways we can because our bodily systems are reacting to it and have it inherent in them. To me, that's such a powerful thought. ~ Jessa Gamble

Most of what I do is for creative people - writers and painters and photographers - trying to work through creative problems. ~ Jessa Crispin

I hate cows,' Jessa says, pulling Pebbles ~ Eliza Henry-Jones

People aren't truly evolving, they're just mastering new and cyber-sanctioned ways to get what they want. ~ Jessa Callaver

I wish other people would write about loneliness more. It's hard to remember that it's not personal. We live in a world that is built to make people lonely ... It's difficult to remember that your loneliness is not really about you and everyone has it. ~ Jessa Crispin

Life evolved under conditions of light and darkness, light and then darkness. And so plants and animals developed their own internal clocks so that they would be ready for these changes in light. These are chemical clocks, and they're found in every known being that has two or more cells and in some that only have one cell. ~ Jessa Gamble

When we talk about women's safety as being the top priority, what we are talking about is separating women out from society, not creating space for them within society. We are talking about creating methods of control and manipulation. We are saying that the world needs to be reorganized not around fairness and peace, but around our particular needs and desires. If we continue to define our group's identity by what has been done to us, we will continue to be object rather than subject. Once ~ Jessa Crispin

Take childcare for example, an issue that never gets much support beyond lip service in the feminist world, despite it being something that would benefit the majority of women. Once you reach a certain income level, it's easier and more convenient for you to take care of your own childcare needs than to pay the taxes or contribute to a system that would help all women. If your child is in a failing school, it's much more convenient to place your child in a private or charter school than to organize ways to improve the situation for the entire community. This also applies to expanding social welfare programs, supporting community clinics, and so on. As a woman's ability to take care of herself expands thanks to feminist efforts, the feminist goals she's willing to really fight for, or contribute time and money and effort to, shrink. ~ Jessa Crispin