Sylvia

“In 2009, we’d put on the first-ever White House poetry and spoken-word event, listening as a young composer named Lin-Manuel Miranda stood up and astonished everyone with a piece from a project he was just beginning to put together, describing it as a “concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop…Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.” I remember shaking his hand and saying, “Hey, good luck with the Hamilton thing.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“Rapes: eighty percent of the women and girls who cross Mexico to get to the U.S. border are raped on the way. The situation is so common that most of them take contraceptive precautions as they begin the journey north.”
― Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions

“Empathy is not connecting to an experience, it’s connecting to the emotions that underpin an experience.”
― Brené Brown, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

“It is not even the American Dream that they pursue, but rather the more modest aspiration to wake up from the nightmare into which they were born.”
― Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions