Tamika Hebert

“From the day a girl is born she’s told she needs a love story to survive. It’s everywhere: in poetry, in music, in films and books. She’s told life is worthless without love. She’s told she is worthless without love.” She lowers her voice. “But what no one tells her, what no one talks about, is that it can kill her. That the very thing they say can save her can destroy her. Love is a trap, darling. It lures you in then digs its bony fingers into your chest, breaks open your ribs, and yanks out your bloody, beating heart, and still leaves you alive.”
― Shubnum Khan, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years

“I couldn’t think of any, but that’s the thing about not being able to remember something, isn’t it? You don’t know that you’re not remembering. The picture in your head feels like the truth, even if it’s a lie.”
― Danielle Valentine, Delicate Condition

“It is disturbing what money will buy you, Charlie thinks, discretion and resentment both paid for with the same coin.”
― Dan Vyleta, Smoke

“a maternal mixture of emotions and hormones hummed through me, signaling that it was normal for me to love her and reminding me over and over again that having her was well worth the emotional cost.”
― Terah Shelton Harris, One Summer in Savannah