When the world does its level best to devalue me in ways that are nothing short of brutal, all it does is evidence my value. For why would it expend such massive amounts of energy attempting to destroy something that's not there?

When people see you're happy doing what you're doing, it sort of takes the power away from them to tease you about it.

A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.

Awful things, children. Needy, self-centered tyrants, the boys all teeth and firsts, the girls all claws and spit. Gathering into sniveling packs and sniffing out vulnerabilities — and woe to the child not cunning enough to hide their own — the others would close in like the grubby shark they were. Great pastime, savaging someone.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.

Banning books is just another form of bullying. It's all about fear and an assumption of power. The key is to address the fear and deny the power.

He was not crying for the pain they had caused him, nor for the humiliation he had suffered when they looked at his foot, but with rage at himself because, unable to stand the torture, he had put out his foot of his own accord.