Sophfronia Scott > Quotes

“I savor these moments. They sit tart and bright and sweet on my tongue like the taste of hibiscus tea with honey. From these moments I can cultivate gratitude and from gratitude I distill grace.”
― Sophfronia Scott, On Being 40

“She felt something comforting about his attentiveness; it was like having an earthbound deity watching over her, and she warmed in his sun constantly shining on her”
― Sophfronia Scott, Unforgivable Love: A Retelling of Dangerous Liaisons

“What he said was so full of truth and lies it seemed his head would roll off his neck with the heaviness of it.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Unforgivable Love: A Retelling of Dangerous Liaisons

“People don’t think to ask for anything. They don’t want to be told no.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Unforgivable Love: A Retelling of Dangerous Liaisons

“After a while it became a common thing to see a man’s body mangled—limbs blown off, skulls shattered. But in a war, you don’t look away. You can’t look away. You have to look and look closely; put your hands on what’s torn and broken and bloody and do your best to bind up what you can. Help lessen pain. Offer words of encouragement.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“He said I was fortunate because I was in possession of my inheritance and that I should be confident about it. Once this war is over, he said, it will be important to hold on to what’s intact. He told me not to be afraid. ‘Don’t make up fights that aren’t there,’ he said. ‘Take care of what’s in front of you, what you have now. Don’t waste time being afraid.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“a quiet life didn’t mean an unchanging one.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“The changes in my body embarrassed me. Maybe this was why Calista had kept to herself so much before Papa had died. It felt like all I wanted to do was cover myself up. I think those were the loneliest days of my life. If this was what it meant to become a woman, then the condition didn’t have much to offer, as far as I could see.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“warmth was my sun, his calmness my moon. But”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“I came to admire and respect them but fear for them, too, because the war still lived over our heads. It was a new pain to lose one of my students in the fighting. Now I knew more than their names and ranks, which was all I knew of the soldiers in the field hospital unless I wrote a letter for them. With my students, if one died, I knew the potential lost, the great things he might have done had he lived.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“Seemed like humans were killing humans so that humans could have the right to be humans.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“I wouldn’t want to think like white people do. If being lighter means I might see myself as better than someone else, I don’t want no part of that.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“Sometimes there’s a scent in the air so beautiful, earthly, and alive that it makes me feel ravenous, like this sharp awakening moment wants to cut me open to prove how empty I am, to show how much space there is for me to fill. What will I fill it with? I could eat the dirt and all that is in it and sense it wouldn’t be enough. I am giddy. I want to fly.”
― Sophfronia Scott, On Being 40

“I don't easily give up these moments of grace and joy. At fifty-one, I've experienced enough to know that when tragedy strikes, these moments evaporate with breathtaking speed in the bitter cold of loss, and I'm left grasping for them, my wounded spirit parched.”
― Sophfronia Scott, On Being 40

“came to admire and respect them but fear for them, too, because the war still lived over our heads. It was a new pain to lose one of my students in the fighting. Now I knew more than their names and ranks, which was all I knew of the soldiers in the field hospital unless I wrote a letter for them. With my students, if one died, I knew the potential lost, the great things he might have done had he lived.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“I knelt on the cold ground, breathing cold air, but gently, ever so gently, the air changed. It held a hint of warmth, and I detected but couldn’t identify a slight scent. I didn’t dare move; I didn’t want to disturb it. I folded myself up on the ground and closed my eyes and waited. There was water in this air and a hint of jasmine and magnolia blossom. None of these features fit the time of year or the place. I knew this because I soon recognized what I was taking in: Louisiana; the air of soft evenings; the air before storms; the air that carried water and flowers and endowed even the grayest of days with possibility. My home.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free

“The melancholy taught me this. I couldn’t have felt the split so deeply if I hadn’t been so invested in this unusual community.”
― Sophfronia Scott, Wild, Beautiful, and Free