Ben Zambito

“When the journalist asked me about my body, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most gorgeous dream. I have seen that dream all my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Give up the past! Turn to the future! What is done is done. Bitterness will not undo it.”
― Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile

“Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit