8 Quotes by Sinéad Gleeson

The books we first read are the ones that indelibly affect us. The characters feel closer to people who are real, who merely happen to live in another time and place.

I had wanted natural deliveries, but my fused hips made it a dangerous consideration. They were no less births, and I did not feel any less of a mother. Only other people make you feel like that.

Blood donation is that rare and uncomplicated incidence of a selfless good deed.

Leaving the home on that last night, I kiss her hands. You were so important, I tell her. You were so loved

The lines between body and womb have become blurred, a vessel inside a vessel. The physical body - the visible collection of bones and skin we present to the world - does not fully belong to its owner if the womb within it contains an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. There are all kinds of people ready to queue up and remind a woman of that.

The pregnant body is not solely its owner's domain. In gestating another person you become public property.

The shedding of blood has historically been seen as a male act of heroism: from right-of-passage fistfights, to contact sports and combat. Infrequent, random events seen as standalone milestones; stories to tell once the pain - and enough time - has passed. Female bleeding is more mundane, more frequent, more getonwithit, despite its existence being the reason that every single life begins

Hair has been used to define women racially, sexually, religiously. It makes them into temptresses: represents a troika of femininity, fertility, fuckability