Quotessence
Home / Authors / April Daniels

April Daniels Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

Famous April Daniels Quotes

“The dirty little secret about growing up as a boy is if you’re not any good at it, they will torture you daily until you have the good graces to kill yourself. The posturing and the dominance games are almost inescapable. It’s hard to walk from one end of school to the other without getting shoulder-checked in the halls. Locker rooms are a forgotten circle of Hell. God forbid anyone ever catch you sketching flowers in class, or reading a book that’s “for girls.” Maybe for people who really are boys, that stuff works. Maybe it fits for them.”

“Maybe it's because your mother is always Mom to you, or maybe it's because I was in denial, but finally it hits me: Mom is just as much his captive as I am. She's not just the quieter parent, the more reasonable one. She's the trustee trapped between the warden and the other prisoner. Immediately upon the heels of this understanding is another: I must not say this out loud. To say it out loud is to name it, and to name it is to give it irresistible power. That power will mean it can no longer be ignored. The polite fictions and convenient blind spots won't work anymore. Something will have to change. And I know, with a certainty that fills me with dread, this is something she will not do. If I say the name of this thing he's done to her, she will fight me. She will join him, because she'll have to. Because she'll have to destroy me or else admit I was right.”