Elizabeth S.

“English was such a dense, tight language. So many hard letters, like miniature walls. Not open with vowels the way Spanish was. Our throats open, our mouths open, our hearts open. In English, the sounds were closed. They thudded to the floor. And yet, there was something magnificent about it. Profesora Shields explained that in English there was no usted, no tu. There was only one word—you. It applied to all people. No one more distant or more familiar. You. They. Me. I. Us. We. There were no words that changed from feminine to masculine and back again depending on the speaker. A person was from New York. Not a woman from New York, not a man from New York. Simply a person.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“Sometimes, she knew, the most important battles for dignity, pride, and progress were fought with the simplest of actions. It”
― Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures: Young Readers' Edition of Hidden Figures—Celebrating African American Women Pioneers at NASA

“I'm me," she whispered. "Me"
Nel didn't know quite what she meant, but on the other hand she knew exactly what she meant.
"I'm me. I'm not their daughter. I'm not Nel. I'm me. Me."
Every time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear. Back in bed with her discovery, she stared out the window at the dark leaves of the horse chestnut.
"Me," she murmured. And then, sinking deeper into the quilts, "I want... I want to be... wonderful. Oh, Jesus, make me wonderful.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“I learned something about grief. I had heard people say that when someone dies, it leaves a hole in the world. But it doesn't, I realized. Arturo was still everywhere. Something would happen and I would think, Wait until I tell Arturo. I kept turning around, expecting to see him. If he had disappeared completely, I thought, it might be easier. If I had no knowledge that he had ever existed, no evidence that he was ever part of our lives, it might have been bearable. And how wrong that sounded: part of our lives. As if he was something with boundaries, something that hadn't permeated us, flowed through us and in us and all around us. I learned something about grief. When someone dies, it doesn't leave a hole and that's the agony.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans