Bethany C. Morrow > Quotes

“I'm not a monster because I live in a world that gives me impossible choices.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“We should all speak like sirens. Use our voices to make a difference, because all of them matter.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“Nobody ever figured out hiding things from kids isn’t protecting them if they know something’s wrong! It just makes me think I can’t trust myself. I can’t trust these feelings I have, these warnings I keep sensing. Like I never should have trusted you.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“I know how it feels to be exhausted with yourself.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“The danger is as much a part of home as community is. The fear gets quiet, but it doesn't disappear, and that might be what sets us apart. When we smile, or we dance, or we march, or we win, it isn't because we didn't have a reason we didn't have a reason to be afraid. It isn't because the uncertainty is gone. It's because we did it anyway. Because we cannot be exterminated.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“Why is memory this way? Why isn’t it content to hurt you once? Why must it remind you of all the times you’ve been hurt before?”
― Bethany C. Morrow, MEM

“The thing about being underwater is that it’s not—quiet, I mean. I can’t hear what’s happening above the surface, but when I’m totally submerged, I hear the water. I hear its song, the way it sings to itself and anybody who comes below to hear it. I love the way it never changes, and the way I’m always different when I’m here.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“What we need isn’t dissuading, or discouragement, or consoling. We don’t need to be told we’re all helpless. What we need is action.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“The carpet is a thin veil meant to make the harsh metal look like something soft and welcoming, rather than the monstrosity it would be in its natural state. It takes so little to trick the eyes, but I am lying on the thin deception, and the cold, unmalleable frame is bleeding into me until I start to shiver.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, Cherish Farrah

“They didn’t think you could be strong without struggle, and they kept you weak so you wouldn’t see that the world they made for you only exists here.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, Cherish Farrah

“What kind of people are we if we can’t traverse the landscape of our own memories? What kind of people do they become who refuse?”
― Bethany C. Morrow, MEM

“It’s difficult to let those who held the scripture hostage and warped it to justify enslavement and treachery stand as authorities on its meaning. I don’t mean to imply that there isn’t a true and certain meaning, but it will rarely be championed by the same people who distorted it in their favor.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

“If it is our destiny as Black women to stand before crowds, before press and police and people enamored of our grief—if we are to give eulogy after eulogy and defend the dead… if all we have are our voices, then why are we so feared?”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“Victims can have victims, and the world needs to be reminded.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Chorus Rises

“She seems so calm right now, even serene. She seems so suddenly optimistic and relieved.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“Sisters have no need to defend themselves against each other,” Beth told him before Jo slapped his arm with the back of her hand. “Around the two of you, she might,” he replied without hesitation, nodding first at Joanna and then toward Amy.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

“Thank you again, Mr. Brooks.” Ms. Fisher tilted her head. She’d graduated to using Kyle’s last name, signaling it was time for him to shut up. “As helpful as you’re being today, I’m gonna say no. Not quite. But that’s a common misinterpretation. Freedom of speech protects you from government retaliation for expressing personal views or just generally dissenting opinions. It’s a much more specific context than many people think. For example, it will not protect my son from my wrath when he’s a back-talking teenager.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“I'm in love with a gargoyle.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“No more getting life and fantasy confused, she said.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“I know it can be hard to see people’s struggles close up, baby,” Brianne continues. “It can unsettle us, make us want to pull back or look away. But that’s the thing we shouldn’t ever do, sweetheart. No matter how hard it is to understand, we owe it to the people we love to witness those things we can’t experience with them.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, Cherish Farrah

“She made a lot of tea she forgot to drink. Paw Paw and I would find cups of it everywhere, cold. Forgotten. The house would be sparkling clean except for those sad, out-of-place teacups.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“What else is there to say when someone still thinks they can prove anything to the rest of the world. When they think there’s a way to behave to avoid being brutalized.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“We do.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“We hide light in the darkest place, and when others think embers extinguished, we know how to breathe them back to life.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

“Paw had always said not to read too much into being called last, that they knew they weren’t strong enough to take me until they were all together,”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“They’re only ever speaking for us, and about us. Rarely with us. Even when they have our best interest in mind, how could they know it without our input? The person who believes they know best, still, in some small way and in some interior place they’ve yet to interrogate, does not truly comprehend equality. Yet they mean to deliver us to it.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

“The March women did not rescue her. They did not speak or smile to ease Constance’s palpable discomfort when their own had not been considered.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

“Danger, they report, and they’re talking about the danger she posed, never the danger we face”
― Bethany C. Morrow, A Song Below Water

“No one is free until we all are,” he answered, and around the table there was unanimous approval. There were sounds like something between a sigh of relief and an involuntary hum, and the glimmer snuck back into Meg’s eye.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix

“Color blindness requires the kind of delusional naïveté that I have only ever believed in Cherish. For one thing, you can’t be the intended beneficiary of color’s power and refuse to see it; that’s just refusing accountability. Only someone susceptible to its harm, who honestly and impressively never develops an awareness of that fact, could claim it.”
― Bethany C. Morrow, Cherish Farrah