Charmaine Wilkerson > Quotes

“Question yourself, yes, but don’t doubt yourself. There’s a difference.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“You were never just you, and you owed it to the people you cared about to remember that. Because the people you loved were part of your identity, too. Perhaps the biggest part.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“And what about a person's life? How do you make a map of that? The borders people draw between themselves. The scars left along the ground of one's heart.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“More people’s lives have been shaped by violence than we like to think. And more people’s lives have been shaped by silence than we think.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“I have lived long enough to see that my life has been determined not only by the meanness of others but also by the kindness of others, and their willingness to listen.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“And this is what I need you two to understand: You have always known who I am. Who I am is your mother. This is the truest part of me.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“The people who love us the most have the power to hurt us the most too.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“She said that you had to love the sea more than you feared it. You had to love the swimming so much that you would do anything to keep on going.” His mother looked out the car window. “Just like life, you know?”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“Because the world needed decent, even more than it needed brilliant.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“I hope that you won't be afraid to make the same kind of choice again, if you feel that this is what you need to do to survive. Question yourself, yes, but don't doubt yourself. There's a difference.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“The beauty of a thing justified its plunder.
And nothing was more beautiful than a girl who was fearless.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“The three of them sit there silently for a moment, thinking of small but profound inheritances. Of how untold stories shape people's lives, both when they are withheld and when they are revealed.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“History, too often, has been told from only certain perspectives. This is not good enough. History is a collective phenomenon. It can only be told through a chorus of voices. And that chorus must make room for new voices over time.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Good Dirt

“Most of the trouble in this world boils down to one person not recognizing the worth of another.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Good Dirt

“Are you going to let someone else’s view of who you should be, and what you should do, hold you back?”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“Everything is connected to everything else, if you only go far enough back in time.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“If we really mean to respect people in their maturity, then we must acknowledge them as fully formed individuals with long histories; we must be prepared to see them as they are, to recognize that a shit is a shit, young or old.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“The biggest moments in our lives are often just that, a matter of seconds when something shifts and we react and everything changes.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“untold stories shape people’s lives both when they are withheld & when they are revealed.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“tradition has sometimes told us that only certain kinds of people should study certain subjects, or engage in certain sports, or play in an orchestra, or what have you, but tradition is only about what people have or have not done; it’s not about what they are capable of doing. And it’s not about what they will be doing in the future.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“What defined Eleanor most was not what, or whom, she had held close but what she had allowed herself to let go of.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“The Mind Cannot Be Chained”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Good Dirt

“But most times, whenever he was approached or pulled over by an officer, he slid down into that space between one heartbeat and the next where he could hear his blood crashing through his body, a waterfall carrying centuries of history with it, threatening to wipe out the ground on which he stood.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“Benny stands there in front of the refrigerator, letting the cool air fall on her toes, and thinks of the last cake her mother ever baked. She knows it’s sitting in the freezer but she can’t bear to look in there right now. Instead, she leans her forehead against the upper door of the fridge. This is your heritage, her mother used to say when they were making black cake, and Benny thought she knew what her
mother meant. But she sees now that she didn’t know the half of it.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“The thing about identity. There’s your family history, there’s how you see yourself, and then there’s what others see in you. All these elements factor into your identity, like it or not.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“You can look at a person and truly have no idea what they are holding inside.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“When people didn't understand something, they often felt threatened. And when people felt threatened, they often turned to violence.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“Things are always changing ... It's true, some of the worst things keep repeating themselves, but things do change. And as citizens, we can do our part to keep things moving in the right direction.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Good Dirt

“Maybe all you can do is give yourself permission to embrace the rest of your life. To play, to love, to risk. To take the beauty that someone brought into your life and share it.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Good Dirt

“There will always be men willing to steal the freedom of others if they think it will bring them an advantage,” Frenchie said.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Good Dirt