Joshua Dowling > Joshua's Quotes

“People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“Perhaps he is a fool or a coward but almost everybody is one or the other and most people are both.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“We stared at each other across a narrow space that was full of danger, that almost seemed to roar, like flame.

‘Come,’ he said.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“I don’t think love as a reason. I think love comes first and then the reasons follow.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

“Olanna felt the slow sadness of missing a person who was still there.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

“Achilles was looking at me. “Your hair never quite lies flat, here.” He touched my head, just behind my ear. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.”

My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. “You haven’t,” I said.

“I should have.” His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. “What about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?”

“No,” I said.

“This surely then.” His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. “Have I told you of this?”

“That you have told me.” My breath caught a little as I spoke.

“And what of this?” His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. “Have I spoken of it?”

“You have.”

“And this? Surely I would not have forgotten this.” His cat’s smile. “Tell me I did not.”

“You did not.”

“There is this too.” His hand was ceaseless now. “I know I have told you of this.”

I closed my eyes. “Tell me again,” I said.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion's tail hidden in his words. He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

“If the sun refuses to rise we will make it rise”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

“Red was the blood of the siblings massacred in the North, black was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have, and, finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious future.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.”
― Isadora Duncan, Isadora Speaks: Uncollected Writings and Speeches of Isadora Duncan