30 Quotes by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

I have come to believe that every family has its defining action, its defining belief. From childhood, I understood that my parents’ was this: Never look back.

I want him to love me. I want it like a prize and because it is what I am supposed to want and because it will save me.

When a lifeline comes, you don’t evaluate whether it’s the right one. You just grab for it, and hold on.

I was sixteen. I didn’t know I was too young for him. I just thought his attention meant that I was worthy of love – could be loved – and that I wasn’t broken. When a lifeline comes, you don’t evaluate whether it’s the right one. You just grab for it and hold on.

For years I’d been afraid that if I came out, and anyone learned I’d been abused as a child, they would think that that was why I was gay. As if that had turned me gay. In my heart I knew that wasn’t it. The first time I slept with a woman, my chest opened up. I hadn’t known until that moment how closed it was. I’m gay because I love women, it’s as simple as that. But for so long the possibility that anyone might even think otherwise kept me hidden.

So I try something new. Not turning my back to the past, not fleeing it, but extending a hand. I say to the past, come with me, then, as I live.

In law school, the concept of the jury is taught through the metaphor of a black box. Into the box, evidence and the law go. Out of the box, a verdict comes. But a black box doesn’t have feelings.

But is an act ever really only about itself? Does any element of this story occur in isolation? I.

It’s repeated a lot, but it isn’t true. Most pedophiles, like most other people, weren’t molested. And there’s no indication that people who were molested become pedophiles. What is true is that among pedophiles, a greater percentage were molested than the percentage of people in general who were molested – but even then, it’s not a huge increase.