Justina Ireland > Quotes

“See, the problem in this world ain’t sinners, or even the dead. It is men who will step on anyone who stands in the way of their pursuit of power.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“It’s a cruel, cruel world. And the people are the worst part.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“There’s nothing white folks hate more than realizing they accidentally treated a Negro like a person.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“My momma always said the best way to get what you want from people is to give them what they think they want. They expected me to be stupid, so I used that to our advantage.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“Maybe that’s your problem. You been waiting for a man.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“Sometimes it’s easier to think about other folks’ small hurts than your big ones.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“The darkness agrees with me. It asks me to release it, as loud as a roar and as quiet as a whisper. I remember what my sister said long ago: You must control the darkness. You can’t ever give in to it. But the shadows want to make me happy, and I deserve a little happiness”
― Justina Ireland, Promise of Shadows

“But that's the way life goes most of the time: the thing you least count on comes along and ruins everything else you got planned.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“The day I came squealing and squalling into the world was the first time someone tried to kill me. I guess it should have been obvious to everyone right then that I wasn't going to have a normal life.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“Why are all pretty boys insane?”
― Justina Ireland, Promise of Shadows

“But I can't change the past; I can only push headlong into an uncertain future.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“I ain't waiting for an opportunity. I'm making one.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“Someday, if not today, you will see that this life is nothing without people to love”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“Momma used to say that a politician was a man that had perfected the art of lying,”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“...we know the curse that has been laid upon us--not the curse of bondage, but rather the curse of neglect. This country does not see, nor seek to remedy, the suffering of the Negro, and we are taxed to bear the wrath of white inadequacy.”
― Justina Ireland, Deathless Divide

“So don't let nobody tell you any different about the old days. Life is hard now, nothing but suffering, but some kinds of suffering is easier to bear than others.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“It was the midwife that tried to do me in. Truth be told, it wasn't really her fault. What else is a good Christian woman going to do when a Negro comes flying out from between the legs of the richest white woman in Haller County, Kentucky?”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“It seems strange that in these very fraught times folks would be more concerned about hardworking people trying to find a better life than the monsters that actually want to eat them.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“I don't need a spotlight to know a snitch when I see one.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“Your grandma used to always tell me that just because something is over doesn't mean it wasn't successful. All things end at some point.”
― Justina Ireland, Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

“Surviving can make people right mean”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“I smile tightly, but say nothing. He is trying to protect me, in the simple way men are always trying to protect women: by stealing away their freedom.”
― Justina Ireland, Deathless Divide

“The Force is not so simple, and neither are the emotions of living creatures. Most Jedi have felt the temptation of the dark side. It is only natural. But we resist it. It is a deliberate path to the dark, not a series of bad days. Being a Jedi is about choosing the light over and over again.”
― Justina Ireland, A Test of Courage

“Sometimes you have to live down to people's expectations, Kate. If you can do that, you'll get much further in life.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“You believe strongly enough in an idea, nothing else matters.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“You're a heartbreaker, Katherine Devereaux."

"That has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them," I say, blowing on my coffee before sipping it. There's chicory in the brew and I drink it appreciatively while we walk. "I have already had to tell more than one of them that I am not interested in courtship, thinking about courtship, hearing about courtship, or talking about the possibility of courtship. What is it with men thinking every woman they meet must be half in love with them?”
― Justina Ireland, Deathless Divide

“When are these damn fools going to realize that world is gone, and they ain’t never getting it back? The tall tales they’ve been told ain’t worth their lives, either way.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“And I suppose I might have grown up better, might have become a proper house girl or even taken Aunt Aggie's place as House Negro. I might have been a good girl if it had been in the cards. But all of that was dashed to hell two days after I was born, when the dead rose up and started to walk on a battlefield in a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“Momma always said a healthy serving of scorn before dinner keeps a girl slim.”
― Justina Ireland, Dread Nation

“Being a Jedi is about choosing the light over and over again.”
― Justina Ireland, A Test of Courage