“There is nothing more dangerous than a girl who is aware of the flames inside her, and all the damage she can do.”

I am more powerful than I am damaged and I will rise from any abyss you drown me in.

And she needs no prince or knight to save her, because her might is enough to tame dragons.

Survival is ugly. Healing is messy. Self-love is complicated.

So when they ask you what you weigh, you don’t need to look down at any scale. Instead, simply tell them the truth; tell them how you weigh whole universes and storms and scars and stories, too.

Before we had mouths or language or hope, we still had love. I know it’s not much. But my god, it’s beautiful and on so many days it is enough.

If a woman does not fit the shape of what you think a woman should, if a woman is not obedient, does not see things the way you do, if a woman is too independent to need anything more than herself, does she automatically become a threat filled with such terror to you?

It has taken me some time to learn that although karma exists, you can let your hatred go, not by destroying your own magic but by letting it grow.

The worst story I know is my heart. The best story I know is my heart. Both these truths know how to exist together in ways I never thought I will learn. This is the quietest of victories.

Love someone who is kinder to you than you are to yourself.

Listen to me girl, you have castles inside your bones, coronets in your heart, if he threatens you with a battle, you raise him a whole war, the last time I checked, queens cover before no man.

Somedays I am more wolf than woman. And I am still learning how to stop apologizing for my wild.

And darling, I hope your remember to kiss the ghosts goodnight. They are only older versions of you that you have had to discard and forget.

Grandmothers are a gift not to be taken lightly. So many lose them, before they are old enough to know their magic. I am glad my bones were born with this knowledge.

That growth is simply learning how to suffer, gracefully, elegantly constantly moving and travelling without letting your pain tear you apart.

You need not fear the wolves you hide in your soul. They were made not to hurt you, but to protect you against this world.

To heal you must forgive your heart, your skin, your body, all of their mistakes.

The remarkable thing about management is that a manager can go on for years making mistakes that nobody is aware of, which means that management can be a kind of a con job.

There are people who are born and die and never once are aware of their breath going in and out of their body. That’s how far away they live from themselves

I soon became aware that there wasn’t enough time or opportunity to kiss all the girls in the world. The best thing is to stay cool – just be choosy and wait for the right opportunity.

It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.

I’m sure they learn a lot, and some of them, it makes them aware of what they wish to do. I was – that’s the way I was – autodidact.

As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind’s compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Awareness naturally returns to its non-state of absolute unmanifest potential, the silent abyss beyond all knowing.

When you begin to become conscious, more aware, when your eyes begin to open, the first thing you see is how deluded you are and how much you’re holding onto that which makes you suffer. This is, in many ways, the most important step: Are you willing to be aware?

I hope I have made it clear that the work is about perfection as we are aware of it in our minds but that the paintings are very far from being perfect – completely removed in fact – even as we ourselves are.