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“No one should diminish themselves to prove their love.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Hurt is worse than anger, you know. Anger dwells in the head, then fades. Hurt lingers in the soul. It rearranges your feelings without your permission. It blinds you.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“You become an agent of your own existence the minute you stop blaming others for what they did to you. Those who hurt us cannot heal us. That's our job.”
― Isaac's Song
― Isaac's Song
“If you get nothing else from this letter, understand that I never knew how to love. I dreamed of it, but I never experienced it. What I knew was pain. So that's what I gave you. I'd never seen a black life free from it, so my job as a father, I assumed, was to prepare your back for the load. I hope that, after you read this, you'll return my pain to me. But you might not. We get used to it, the weight of the pain, and when it threatens to go, we sometimes hold on to it for dear life. But there's no joy while it lingers near.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Children don't carry the weight of history, so their capacity for heavy things might be greater. But few adults believe this, so we pass along only what we think they can bear. Children wonder later why we didn't tell them everything so they could avoid our mistakes.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Pride really can kill a man. Actually, it makes him kill himself. He justifies his errors and creates his own righteousness in his mind.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Hurt is worse than anger. Anger dwells in the head, then fades. Hurt lingers in the soul. It rearranges your feelings without your permission. It blinds you.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Everything we did, whether we were aware or not, we did with white people in mind. Our life's aim was to make them believe we had value and worth, so we spent our nights trying to figure out what they liked, then spent our days trying to do it. We still haven't pleased them, and truth is, we never will.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Something about language makes a thing real. It makes thoughts tangible. You can lie to your thoughts, and they'll lie back to you-until you write them down. Then, before scrutinizing eyes, they won't lie any longer.”
― Isaac's Song
― Isaac's Song
“I want readers to reconsider the capacity of our fathers’ hearts. Many of them were handed so little, yet we expected so much.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Love doesn't make us perfect; it makes us want to be.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Pride can really kill a man. Actually, it makes him kill himself. He justifies his errors and creates his own righteousness in his mind. Grandma used to say, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is death.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“If church had been nothing but music, I could've stayed.”
― Isaac's Song
― Isaac's Song
“How black people survived bondage and emotional trauma by believing in the Invisible. When you consider it, they should've given up and died. Every single one of them. But for some reason, they didn't.”
― Isaac's Song
― Isaac's Song
“Loneliness can kill you. It makes you think and do strange, unhealthy things.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Reconsider the capacity of our fathers’ hearts. Many of them were handed so little, yet we expected so much. They gave more than they had, but less than what we needed.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“I realized I didn't want to get bogged down in a system rigged against me. I don't want to use my energy reacting to white people. Sometimes we gotta do it; I understand that. But usually it's a waste of time. Our rage doesn't change America. Not fundamentally. It makes America change the rules of the game. I didn't want to play anymore.”
― Isaac's Song
― Isaac's Song
“It's not been a horrible life, Isaac. It's just been a lonely one. But that was my own doing. Reading taught me that a man's life is his own responsibility, his own creation. Blaming others is a waster of time. No one can make you happy if you're determined to be miserable. And, for many years, I was.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Although we were flawed, we were marvelous too.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Yet by exploring the lives of these precious brothers, I discovered that all men want the same things: validation, worth, purpose.”
― Isaac's Song
― Isaac's Song
“After 'The Color Purple', I became something of a reader. The more I read, the more I saw myself. Knowledge is a funny thing, Issac, it informs by exposing. It shows you precisely how much you don't know. In other's stories, I noticed how similar we all are. Everyone wants the same things and everyone struggles with the same things.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Sometimes you have to grow up before you appreciate how you grew up.”
― Perfect Peace
― Perfect Peace
“If church folks are right, I'll see him soon and I'll be happy again. If they're wrong, I'll have no peace in eternity. No peace at all.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Yet freedom is never private. It will not hide for you. It will not disguise itself. It takes no refuge in safety. It's a declaration to the world of one's refusal to be bound. And that's the role of the writer-to force the reader's freedom- even when bondage is the preference.”
― Isaac's Song
― Isaac's Song
“You can't treat people like shit and expect them not to act. Somebody's gonna rebel.”
― Isaac's Song
― Isaac's Song
“Everything I'd ever loved I'd destroyed. You don't know - I hope you don't know - the feeling of losing everyone you ever loved.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Hurt is hard to forget, especially from a mother. And healing is never easy for black men.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Slavery been over."
"No it ain't. Not in our minds. We didn't start this mess about light skin versus dark skin and all that shit. They started that. We just inherited it.”
― Don't Cry for Me
"No it ain't. Not in our minds. We didn't start this mess about light skin versus dark skin and all that shit. They started that. We just inherited it.”
― Don't Cry for Me
“We lived lives of desperate hope, afraid that white people's disapproval equaled our destruction.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me
“Memories reveal who you used to be, what you once though important, what regrets you cannot shake.”
― Don't Cry for Me
― Don't Cry for Me




