“Why is erasing desire seen as so important? If the subjugation of the self is the point of the self what's the point in having a self? It's like someone handing you a leaflet which says throw this leaflet away.”

“There was no point dreaming; the leaflet was nothing more than a glass slipper handed to the ugly sister. I would never fit in there even if they'd let me go, which was a fairy tale in itself.”

“Marxism teaches that exploitation and degradation somehow produce resistance and revolution. It's been hard to say why. What I've learned from women's experience with sexuality is that exploitation and degradation produce grateful complicity in exchange for survival. They produce self-loathing to the point of extinction of self, and it is respect for self that makes resistance conceivable.”

“Why were there no words that spoke positively about being concerned about the self? Why was there only negative connotation in terms like "selfish", "self-interested", "self-centred", "self-obsessed" and so on? Why was it so much better to be without a self: "selfless", "self-sacrificing", "self-effacing", etc?”

“The will to power, the force of desire, appears as an insensitive urge to dominate. But several points in Nietzsche’s work speak against such a reading. The “self” includes the desire above all for self-overcoming. It is our own limits we most seek to break.”

“Did I say stab of Self Pity? No, I was trekking through the Swamp of Self Pity at this point, waist deep in my own stinking shit.”