Florence Given

And actually speaking your own opinions and writing your own opinions is one of the most audacious ways of taking up space.

Publishing a book is the most audacious way of taking up space I think I've ever done in my whole life.

Every time I publish a book, the audacity that it takes to think I deserve to take up space on bookshelves.

I deserve to take up space in the minds of other people and I'm going to hold their attention for about, I don't know, 300 pages long.

Because I think that what I have to say is important.

That shit is so fucking empowering.

And it's probably...

Also, why I pissed a lot of people off in my early 20s, because I had the audacity to think that I could write a book at 20.

Gosh, she's so annoying.

And I say this with the self-awareness that I'm not for everyone.

And what a joy it is to not be for everyone because I belong fully to myself.

When I stopped doing that little like pandering dance of trying to perform for other people and trying to get everyone to like me that I actually did a lot of in my early twenties as well.

I was so afraid of getting something wrong or my words not being politically correct enough that I was like, oh my God, the amount of time it would take me to write a fucking caption.

Why was I pretending not to be human?

Why do we do that?

Why do we pretend not to be human?

And it's because I guess there are now so, so many consequences for just speaking freely.

You know what I mean, right?

Like, don't you just want to consume content from people that speak freely?

That's why I love listening to Quentin Tarantino.