Rakel

“Son, one of the biggest lies ever told is that black men don't feel emotions. Guess it's easier not to see us as human when you think we're heartless. Fact of the matter is, we feel things. Hurt, pain, sadness, all of it. We got a right to show them feelings as much as anybody else.”
― Angie Thomas, Concrete Rose

“Fiction builds empathy. Fiction is something you build up from twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world, and people it and look out through other eyes. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed.”
― Neil Gaiman, Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World

“I understood too well what it was like to feel like you were defined by one superficial thing- to feel like you would never excape the box people had put you in”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“If the decision you’ve made has brought you closer to humanity, then you’ve done the right thing.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea