bell hooks, Communion: The Female Search for Love

"The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourself. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin."

"I think the truth is that finding ourselves brings more excitement and well-being than anything romance has to offer, and somewhere we know that."

"The feminist call was for women to embrace ways of seeing beauty and adorning ourselves that are healthy, life-affirming, and not overly time-time consuming."

"Heightened awareness often gives the illusion that a problem is lessening. This is most often not the case. It may mean simply that a problem has become so widespread it can no longer remain hidden or be ignored."

"Most feminist groups began with women talking about how we saw ourselves and other women, how we acted. We openly confessed our fears and hatred of other women. We talked about how to combat jealousy, the politics of envy, and so on."

"Men did care enough to struggle with our demands. And some cared enough to convert to feminist thinking and to change. But only a very, very few loved us – loved us all the way. And that meant respecting our sexual rights. To this day I believe that feminist debate about love and sexuality ended precisely because straight women did not want to face the reality that it was highly unlikely in patriarchal society that a majority of men would wholeheartedly embrace women’s right to say no in the bedroom. Since the vast majority of heterosexual women, even those involved in radical feminist movement, were not willing to say no when they did not want to perform sexually for the fear of upsetting or alienating their mate, no significant group of men ever had to rise to the occasion. While it became more acceptable to say no now and then, it was not acceptable to say no for any significant amount of time. An individual woman in a primary relationship with a man could not say no, because she feared there was always another woman in the background who could take her place, a woman who would never say no."

"Significantly, romantic friendships can coexist with the fact of partners' marrying because their reason for being is not to replace marriage but to open the possibility of sustained, committed true love existing among friends, and not just same-sex friends. No matter that our chosen relationship commitments change. Those of us who have long-term romantic friendships, some that have lasted longer than any of our marriages or partnerships, do not fear that these commitments will falter if we create primary bonds."

"Young girls often feel strong, courageous, highly creative, and powerful until they begin to receive undermining sexist messages that encourage them to conform to conventional notions of femininity. To conform they have to give up power."

"Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust."