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Quote by Tressie McMillan Cottom

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Thick: And Other Essays

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Tressie McMillan Cottom

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“I want my daughter to know that she is entitled to be powerful and, on occasion, to compete with other people, including privileged boys and men. I want her to know that if she does end up winning or otherwise outranking them, she may well be entitled to occupy a position of power or authority over them. I want her to be a kind and fearless leader. I want her, of course, to be a graceful loser. I want her to be communally minded and altruistic. At the same time, I want her to feel entitled to make mistakes, moral mistakes included. I want her to know, unlike so many girls and women, that she is lovable and forgivable, even if and when she falters. I want her to be prepared to make amends and admit to her mistakes, fully and freely, when she inevitably makes them.”

“Edgar Allan Poe once called the death of a beautiful woman "the most poetical topic in the world" and I have often found myself wondering how many women writers who have killed themselves or let themselves be otherwise obliterated were trying, somehow, to fulfil this most popular of narratives. We're most valuable when we're smiling, dead, posing, our words hanging on the page with no real body behind them.”