Sally Anne

“And she knew that this was the thing that would harm Dionne in the end, not her foolishness but the foolhardy way in which she clung to her own terrible ideas. She knew that this was Avril's undoing, not that she'd made the wrong choices, but that she'd been so unwilling to let anyone in to see the lie of her marriage, this masking was worse than the original mistake. Sixty-three years on this earth has taught Hyacinth that it wasn't so much the mistakes that people made but how flexible they were in the aftermath that made all the difference in how their lives turned out. It was the women who held too tightly to the dream of their husband's fidelity who unraveled, the parents who clasped their children too close who lost them, the me who grieved too deeply the lives they'd wanted and would never have who saw their sadness consume them. Hyacinth worried about Dionne because of her hard way of being in the world, the way she could only see the world through the lens of her own flawed feelings.”
― Naomi Jackson, The Star Side of Bird Hill

“Innocence is a temporary, maybe even an unreal, condition. Destined to die.

Innocence lost is supposed to be experience gained, and therefore not a bad trade. "The fortunate fall" as Professor Youngblood taught us in Milton 3111. But what if innocence is never lost, never forfeited Then it can't rise to the edifying abstraction of 'experience.”
― Patricia Hampl, The Florist's Daughter

“Maybe this is how it happened first for everyone —adults promising us their own failed future.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Another Brooklyn

“People are always ashamed of the misery that has befallen them, as though it were an act of divine retribution for a long-forgotten sin of theirs”
― Pascal Garnier