Phillip B. Williams > Quotes

“When the house braced itself against the weather outside, the ceiling sang as though the cold air entering the room had entered a lung and shocked it into troublesome life.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“…while stars poked holes in the sky’s dark argument, until the sun, engorged with the force of spring’s slow approach, annihilated all difference.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“No right way to be free. That's why it's called free. You make all the right and wrong with it as you want. Just be mindful how much of each.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“I have no medicine for what's in you. No conjure for the monster you are. Only advice." Saint spoke softly. "That little scar of yours don't own you. Own your damn self.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“If there's anything more shockingly unpredictable than freedom, it's love. If there is an unhealed wound, love takes the shape of that wound.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Need a mind to be mindful.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Don’t ever try to touch your chains again. You might get rust on your priceless skin.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Pain gets easier. It has no other choice.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“A broken heart builds broken thoughts.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“He wouldn't ever be safe, even if he complied, he could still be harmed in some way; call it an accident, call it"what did he do to deserve it?" call it he should've stopped sooner and faster and laid flatter on the ground, call it Rasheed's legacy, call it a few "bad apples," God-fucking-damn it, the inconvenience of somehow getting the bad one every fucking time, the inconvenience of losing your life, the lack of luxury to test each apple for the gun-toting worm.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours: A Novel

“There's a certain gentleness in blue that's capable of deceiving whoever perceives it, shielding its wearer in a kind demeanor they may not fully embrace, let alone agree with. Blue was hard to come by in nature, anyhow. There's the sky when it cooperated, some bodies of water, and the rare bird. In the iridescent shell of a fly, blue may appear in a flash, then without warning turn green then red. Flower petals are tricky. The cornflower, iris, and delphinium carry more purple on their velvet than anything else. And when summer laid it on down to rest, autumn sucked the color out like marrow from a bone. In that way, blue never stuck around, not for long, so when Saint came upon the color and the color chose to stay, caution stuck close to her heart for, at any moment, blue - gentleness, kindness, tranquility - could burn red.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“To be a man meant to be unoccupied with things that had nothing to do with him unless he chose to make those things his business. It was the right and ability to make a choice. A choice about anything at all and to do so with wisdom. And to stand by those choices and all that comes with them.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Their entire bodies cleansed in the running water, the water taking with it all that wasn't theirs to carry: their bruises, their traumas, their hardened melancholy.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Freedom didn't mean safety.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“You have to find what turn your grief useful to you.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“See yourself as yourself and tell yourself nice things.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“How does one love in this world? Where is there enough room inside a self to love so many others?”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Freedom always had its price: substantial, horrific, a currency of blood.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Nothing was ever purely sudden. Every feeling had a history that could unbury the dead and still find some life.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“But a sense of love is not actual love.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“She tended to the world with this ambivalence, doing things for love of mankind with zero interest in loving a specific man.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Showing the tricky nature of names and their power to circle back through time even when memory or the mouth fails.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“They touched their faces, put their fingers in their mouths, tugged on their ears and stomped the ground, their bodies moving and creating a new rhythm that the men had to change their claps to fit, the claps now being determined by the dancers moving, while the men got to stomping and shouting joyfully, syncopating their palms to the women and children and if the men got off beat they fixed that by paying close attention to the feet blurring and kicking and stomping near the fire so they laid down their instruments and played a song with their bodies and their heads got to nodding and hips to rocking to gyrating to the claps pulsating around them changing changing changing and their mouths open and the funk of the body let loose the sweat the stink all in the hair until somebody hollered something beyond a word and they kept on hollering it the sound leading into another sound into a new sound loud from the mouth like a spirit trying to answer the bodies or the bodies trying to answer the spirit that wouldn’t be contained as their legs kicked and their heads rolled until their movements spoke in Tongues and the throat got to letting out a moan here and a groan there and the sound of pain left their flesh while their muscular bodies and their thin bodies and their fat bodies and their sickly bodies glistened in the fire and every child screamed as they jumped and spun and every man clapped moaned and testified with their feet to what sounded like it hurt so bad must have hurt them so bad coming up out the body out the burning well of the throat out the wet of their spit wailing lifting up from the bodies now contortion-flexed and contracting on the ground eyes fluttering in their heads the body creating a new way of being a new way of thinking creating a new knowledge that belonged to them—then Saint stopped moving and stood up; her body shook and shined.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“He knew Aba was a friend because of how beautiful Aba made him feel. A good friend will show you the good they see in you.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“He had two minds now: one in the future and one from the past.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Spirits always live near water, this Saint knew, but some spirits require an invitation and instructions, neither of which she knew to give.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“To him this meant she believed in tomorrow and that alone encouraged him to want to build a tomorrow with her. And she did believe in tomorrow, but only enough to tiptoe into it with the weight of yesterday on her head.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“Grief not giveable in that way. You can't give somebody what you feel to make them understand.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“But avoiding loss is not a power given to the living.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours

“A joke from the other side of life that if they didn't take their days slowly, the days would take them.”
― Phillip B. Williams, Ours