Kara Ayers

“And if I told it right, she would learn everything that I know about love and desire and the colors, about this world and the hidden world, about the man with the red-and-gold voice who was almost the ruin of me. And she would know how I survived.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“How much more could her heart break? A lot. It could and would break a lot more. There were, contrary to science, an infinite number of atriums and ventricles.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Vera, or Faith

“The air in the room shifted again. Or was it the air in our lungs? It’s that life-changing thing that happens when you’re seen, valued, and adored. Adoration for girls validates our femininity. When you are a dark-skin girl, no one simply adores you. They laugh with you, tell you their secrets, treat you like one of the boys . . . but there’s no care given to you, no devotion given to you. The absence of that becomes an erasure.”
― Viola Davis, Finding Me

“I’m no longer ashamed of me. I own everything that has ever happened to me. The parts that were a source of shame are actually my warrior fuel. I see people—the way they walk, talk, laugh, and grieve, and their silence—in a way that is hyperfocused because of my past. I’m an artist because there’s no separation from me and every human being that has passed through the world including my mom.”
― Viola Davis, Finding Me