KB Brookins > Quotes

“If I made art about every pain I’ve felt unjustly, I would be swimming in accolades for great American books.

I would take back every word I’ve written if it ended this.

America is the worst group project.”
― KB Brookins

“My therapist says take it easy as if capitalism is listening. As if the body will ever forget what it is given.

I am Black which is history, personified.”
― KB Brookins

“The American government can only do what systems driven by green paper, violence & ache can do.”
― KB Brookins

“Too many of us are compelled to accept genders and sexualities assigned to us; sex and romance would be so much more worth having if they were had on one's own terms. Less dishonesty means more love. Less coercion into certain sexual or romantic behaviors means that more examples of healthy, sustained relationships would exist for youth.”
― KB Brookins, Pretty: A Memoir

“That's why, to me, it was comical that, at family reunions after I went to college, folks had the audacity to ask me, 'Why don't you come to church anymore?,' as if anybody would choose to be around people delusional enough to think that their hypocritical asses were going to heaven. As if anybody would want to frequent a building built on judgment and bigotry, though they tell themselves they've made 'god's house'. God should've tore that shit down brick by brick. God should've evicted every damn body who was more worried about my queerness than doing close readings of the book they used to condemn me.”
― KB Brookins, Pretty: A Memoir

“For me, keeping up appearances for strangers in pews feels more backward than anything else. Deeming every girl that doesn't perform high femininity as a "curse", and deeming femininity you don't like as "Jezebel behavior" surely is a U-turn straight to hell. But to our family, it was just a part of being a god-fearing woman raising god-fearing (read: normal) girls.”
― KB Brookins, Pretty: A Memoir