Dusty Shell

“Blaming everyone and everything else for our problems and challenges may be the norm and may provide temporary relief from the pain, but it also chains us to these very problems. Show me someone who is humble enough to accept and take responsibility for his or her circumstances and courageous enough to take whatever initiative is necessary to creatively work his or her way through or around these challenges, and I’ll show you the supreme power of choice.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Sometimes she cries because things are so beautiful and we keep messing them up. Because the world doesn’t have to be so terrifying. That’s on people, not the world.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“This might explain why white people are so defensive about their space. They'll insist at their dinner tables are not political. And while it may be true that they do no intentional political consciousness-raising at Sunday lunch, they nevertheless uphold and protect the dominant and pervasive anti-Black common sense of the wider society while they eat. Then they reinterpret our Black-experiences--which undermine the myths they crave--as "politics," a euphemism for impolite conversation. They gaslight us and call it keeping the peace.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives