"I get what he means, because I think I've played pretend my whole life.  I don't know when, but a really long time ago, I decided who I wanted to be.  And I've been acting like her - whoever she is - since.  But I think the act is fading, and I don't know if I like the person I am beneath it all.  I wish there were some kind of magic words that could bridge the gap between the person I am and the one I wish I could be.  Because the whole fake it till you make it thing?  It's not working for me." 
-Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

"Be your own place of safety, she told herself." 
-Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

"I woke up each morning and watched her dance in the sunlight coming through the curtains and thought, Jesus, she is the most magnificent girl I have ever seen.  Sometimes my breath would even catch and my eyes tear up at her effortless joy and perfection.  And then I walked to my bathroom to get ready for the day and swore under my breath at the haggard and fat reflection staring back at me.  Until one day it hit me.  In a few years Gigi will stand in front of her own mirror, hating her own thick thighs and giant feet.  She'll call herself fat and disgusting.  She might even think, for a moment, that it would just be easier to not exist at all.  I don't know what would destroy me more.  The part that she could even for one moment think that she is anything other than beautiful, or the fact that she learned it all from me.

Of all the hobbies I have picked up and dropped over the years - the fiddle, magic, competitive eating - body hate has been my most dedicated and refined.  And now with the birth of just one tiny and beautiful girl, everything I knew about myself had changed."
-Fat Girl Walking by Brittany Gibbons

"I could say 'I love my body' so that I appear to be a good feminist.  But that only means pretending to love something I hate."
-So Sad Today: Personal Essays by Melissa Broder