Wanda M. Morris > Quotes

“You fightin’ for ya life. Like I always told you, you use your heart to love but you use your head to fight.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“I’ve heard some women say having a baby changes you. Not having one can change you, too.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Racism is exhausting and embarrassing, even in front of your best friend, who’s also Black. It’s as if there’s a stealth undercurrent of unwarranted assumptions, petty slights, and dismissals always ready to pop up and reinforce the idea that people of color aren’t good enough, they aren’t welcome.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“I hadn’t been happy, truly happy, in a very long time. It was because I was so tired, too weary from juggling all the cardboard pieces of my life, fighting all the -isms of being Black and female in America. Now, all I wanted to do was take off my boxing gloves and rest.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Maybe men pretend to be smart so they can keep up with the women who really are.”
― Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run

“Men always like to make plans for a woman as if she ain’t got dreams and a mind of her own.”
― Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run

“when people piss on me and try to convince me it’s raining.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Vera used to call the time right after a loved one dies the “bewitching season”—that surreal wedge of time when everyone searches for a new normal but the void is too deep and too raw, leaving you in emotional limbo.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Grief can be a sneaky little bitch like that, cutting your heart open in the most unlikely places, and each slice as fresh as the first.”
― Wanda M. Morris, What You Leave Behind

“Maybe if she weren’t infertile”
― Wanda M. Morris, Small Things

“many laws as he wanted, it still wouldn’t stop the evil inside the hearts of Mississippi white folks.”
― Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run

“A smile doesn’t show how you feel. Your eyes do.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“His question was another example of the “polite racism” of the New South, much like the way Black people in Atlanta coexisted around Confederate soldier statues and venues containing the words plantation and Dixie. The expectation was that such things were harmless symbols of white heritage. They weren’t. They were relics of slavery and a secessionist society that stirred hurtful messages of racism. And now, a board member wanted to know where my family’s slave owners were from.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“A lot of folks like to decide your future based on your past. I believe if you keep your head on straight, one shouldn’t have anything to do with the other.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Hannah, stop playing small just to make Rusty feel big. One day it’ll come back to haunt you.”
― Wanda M. Morris, Small Things

“I really hate it when people piss on me and try to convince me it’s raining.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Rusty had a saying: If you behaved better, then I’d treat you better.”
― Wanda M. Morris, Small Things

“His question was another example of the “polite racism” of the New South, much like the way Black people in Atlanta coexisted around Confederate soldier statues and venues containing the words plantation and Dixie. The expectation was that such things were harmless symbols of white heritage. They weren’t. They were relics of slavery and a secessionist society that stirred hurtful messages of racism.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Love with your heart. Fight with your head.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Chillicothe”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“Change often worked like that—desperately needed, slow to come, and life-altering on its arrival.”
― Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run

“Do you know what a blessing and privilege it is to own property? A piece of land or a structure that is totally yours? Don't leave that poor girl without a legacy”
― Wanda M. Morris, What You Leave Behind

“I found myself marching toward Lester like he had just cashed his paycheck and he owed me money.”
― Wanda M. Morris, What You Leave Behind

“He wanted nothing to do with this job or these people. When he turned back to the car, the hot flash of a .45-caliber pistol powered a single blast right between his eyes.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“When elephants fight, the only thing that suffers is the grass. —African proverb”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets

“If I were in trouble, Lana would bring a casserole to my house and help me find a good lawyer. Grace would bring a gallon of bleach, a tarp, and a couple of shovels.”
― Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets