Blue

“Here they learn the rest of the lesson begun in those soft houses with porch swings and pots of bleeding heart: how to behave. The careful development of thrift, patience, high morals, and good manners. In short, how to get rid of the funkiness. The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions.

Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies. They fight this battle all the way to the grave. The laugh that is a little too loud; the enunciation a little too round; the gesture a little too generous. They hold their behind in for fear of a sway too free; when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear of lips too thick, and they worry, worry, worry, about the edges of their hair.”
― Toni Morrison

“Mrs. Klapper scoffed. "Perhaps you should consider making time, Mr. Baker. Being alone at your age isn't healthy. I'd hate to think of what would happen if you were to blow your brains out. It'd hurt the resale value of the whole neighborhood."
"I'm not depressed!"
She looked him up and down. "You aren't? Why on earth not?”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents.” “So that’s what I am.” “There’s some of it in all of us.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“They deliver right away and with no pain. Just like horses. The young ones smiled a little.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye