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Quote by Antonella Gambotto-Burke

“Ninety-six per cent of juvenile prostitutes are fugitives from abusive domestic situations; 66 per cent began working before they turned 16. (Prostitution is their only perceived means of survival.) Millions of children work as prostitutes around the world. A third are male. One study revealed that over 50 per cent of prostitutes are the children of alcoholics or substance abusers, and 90 per cent are deflowered through incest or rape. Ninety-one per cent of prostitutes do not speak of the abuse. (The truth of life is told through the language of behavior.) Abused children suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, guilt, self-destructive impulses, suspicion, fear. Seventy-five per cent of prostitutes attempt suicide. (Imagine their scrapbook of memories.)”

Quote by Antonella Gambotto-Burke

Work

The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide

This memoir delves into the author's personal experiences and reflections on the act of suicide, offering an intimate look at the emotional and psychological factors involved. more

Author

Antonella Gambotto-Burke
Antonella Gambotto-Burke

Antonella Gambotto-Burke is an Italian-born author known for her works in history, culture, and cuisine. Born in September 1965, her writing style is characterized by in-depth research and vivid storytelling. more

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“In my head, owning a bookstore meant I could hide in the back reading all day, while other bookworms came and went without a sound, resembling almost a library or, better yet, a convent. People never talked to me or to each other, we were just a secret society of readers, alone but together in silent unity. In reality though, owning a bookstore meant that I never actually had time to read a book myself. And being a newer bookstore, meant that I was broke and couldn’t actually afford staff so I had to do most things myself. Alone. In front of people. With my face showing. And sometimes having to make eye contact. It was awful.”

“And that one guy, Martin that everyone liked, well he had a gash above his right eye and bruising near his jawline making him look even more corrupt. It took a moment for me to remember hearing he was a boxer. He caught me staring and stared back. No blinking. No movement. Just staring. Staring. I looked away blushing. From my periphery I could see him raise a hand to the cut above his eye then quickly shove his fists into the front pockets of his jeans. I turned my head to catch his eyes fall to the floor. It looked like he was focused on the leg of a barstool, but I think I saw a smile split his face.”

“You know, just because the rest of us aren't as perfect as you are doesn't mean we're completely useless. Which reminds me--- what the hell did Brigid do that made you cut her off from the rest of her family?" Phoebe hesitated. "Tell me!" Sibyl demanded. "She said Calum didn't kill our mother." Sibyl threw her hands up. "So Brigid was right and you've been punishing her all this time for nothing?" "He was the reason my mother died!" "No." Sybil was adamant. "Flora showed us. She made a choice. It was her decision. Brigid was right all along." "Technically," Phoebe muttered. "What the fuck, Mom! Are you completely incapable of admitting you're wrong?”

“Sometimes I worry (and I know I worry too much, too seriously) that I will have the same self-doubts and uneasiness as a man as I have a woman. I worry that I will fail to find the happiness I think I will. But as I wash myself and prepare for this surgery, when I buy my new shirts and look at my breasts and think they are sexy (!), I know I'll come out of this a better person.”

“As with cross-modal task transfer in echolocating dolphins, spontaneous cross-modal recognition in weakly electric fish strongly suggests that electrolocated objects are being perceived holistically in three dimensions with a representational format and/or phenomenological quality that is analogous in fundamental ways to vision. Object recognition across ISMs is thus a robustly replicable phenomenon and is indicative of both the common representational formats of ISM percepts and their global access. Further, as von der Emde and colleagues point out, cross-modal recognition is not a quirk of experimental artifice. Rather, it is a crucial adaptive functionality that ensures reliable perception in complex environments in which information flowing in from different senses must be weighted and adjusted in accordance with fluctuating conditions, such as changes in turbidity, lighting conditions, and so forth.”

“Regarding the Platonic zoo and its new establishment, what is at issue is thus to learn for all the world whether between the population and the director ship there is merely a difference of degree or a difference in species. According to the first assumption, the distance between those who tend human beings and their fosterlings would obviously only be a contingent and pragmatic one—in this case, one could attribute to the herd the capacity to periodically rotate their herders. However, if a difference in species prevails between the managers of the zoo and its inhabitants, then they would be so fundamentally different from each other that an elected directorship would not be advisable, but rather only a directorship based on insight. Only the false zoo directors, the pseudo-statesmen, and political sophists would then tout themselves with the argument that they are just like their herds, while the one who truly tends the body politic would focus on difference and make it discreetly understood that, because he acts from insight, he stands closer to the gods than to the confused living beings whom he guides.”