Rachel

“Let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons.”
― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

“One day soon, you’ll hear a car pull up to your curb, an engine cut out. You’ll hear footsteps coming up your front walk. Like they did for Edward Wayne Edwards, twenty-nine years after he killed Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew, in Sullivan, Wisconsin. Like they did for Kenneth Lee Hicks, thirty years after he killed Lori Billingsley, in Aloha, Oregon.

The doorbell rings.

No side gates are left open. You’re long past leaping over a fence. Take one of your hyper, gulping breaths. Clench your teeth. Inch timidly toward the insistent bell.

This is how it ends for you.

“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark,” you threatened a victim once.

Open the door. Show us your face.

Walk into the light.”
― Michelle McNamara, I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

“The ultimate logic of racism is genocide,
and if one says that one is not good enough to have a job that is a solid quality job, if one is not
good enough to have access to public accommodations, if one is not good enough to have the
right to vote, if one is not good enough to live next door to him, if one is not good enough to
marry his daughter because of his race. Then at that moment, that person is saying that that
person who is not good to do all of this is not fit to exist or to live. And that is the ultimate logic of racism.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Do you enjoy reading, Lady Sarah?” he asked.
“Very much,” she answered. “Sentimental novels are my favorite, though I’m not supposed to say so.”
“Why not?” he wondered with genuine surprise.
“Because they aren’t edifying or educational. Because they teach me to expect things out of life that aren’t really possible.”
He made a scoffing sound. “Rubbish. Not the books, but those opinions. There’s nothing wrong with a little escape. And there’s certainly nothing at fault with teaching someone how to hope for a better life.”
― Eva Leigh, Temptations of a Wallflower