Quotations (13)

1 to 13 of 13 items
“You gotta watch your mama,” her father had warned her once. “She still like those folks” “What folks?” She was lying on the rug beside him, watching him catch jacks, his large hands blurring in front of her eyes. “The folks she come…
"You didn't just find a self out there. You have to make one. You had to create who you wanted to be."
In the dark, you could never be too black. In the dark, everyone was the same color.
“Her death hit in waves. Not a flood, but water lapping steadily at her ankles. You could drown in two inches of water. Maybe grief was the same.” - p. 336
“…an assassination is when someone kills you to make a point. Which was correct enough,…but only if you were an important man. Important men became martyrs, unimportant ones victims. The important men were televised funerals, public days…
“She hadn't realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.” - p.169
“Skin tissue and muscles and nerves, bone and blood. A body could be labeled but a person couldn’t, and the difference between the two depended on that muscle in your chest. That beloved organ, not sentient, not aware, not feeling, just…
“In the dark, you could never be too black. In the dark, everyone was the same color.” - p. 107
“As they grew, they no longer seemed like one body split in two, but two bodies poured into one, each pulling it her own way.” - p. 36
“White folks kill you if you want too much, kill you if you want too little.” - p. 35
“Sometimes who you were came down to the small things.” - p. 22
“A town always looked different once you'd returned, like a house where all the furniture had shifted three inches. You wouldn't mistake it for a stranger's house but you'd keeping banging your shins on the table corners.” - p.15
“The only difference between lying and acting was whether your audience was in on it, but it was all a performance just the same.” - p. 13