d4

“I tell you, Chickadee
I am afraid of people
Who cannot cry
Tears left unshed
Turn to poison
In the ducts
Ask the next soldier you see
Enjoying a massacre
If this is not so.

People who do not cry
Are victims
Of soul mutilation
Paid for in Marlboros
And trucks.

Violence does not work
Except for the man
Who pays your salary
Who knows
If you could still weep
You would not take the job.”
― Alice Walker

“A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I've grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let's peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write.”
― Amy Poehler

“As you sit, make peace also with the reality that, after you die, it won't matter to you how you are remembered; you will not be here to experience it. All the grand things that you do or say, all the skyscrapers you build and cover with gold, your elegant tombstone, all will be completely forgotten eventually. Even your children, and their children, too, will be forgotten. That being so, perhaps it is best to begin to erase your presence well before you leave the scene.”
― Alice Walker

“Of course, I now see that good behaviour is the proper posture of the weak, of children.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place