Buried In Print

“I want to look at the work. I don’t care if its white or black. I don’t agree that “If you’re white, you can’t write”. I want to see what they can do. I also don’t believe that because I am a man, I can’t write about women. I had better quit writing, if I can’t write about women. Why can’t women write about men? It’s talent that’s important.”
― Leon Forrest, Conversations with Leon Forrest

“Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, its because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this so strong, the experience so recent, that we can't quite bring ourselves to embrace this idea that you think so much of. As for hat we were like before we met you, I no longer care. No periods of time over which my ancestors held sway, no documentation of complex civilisations, is any comfort to me. Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

“Under every layer of pain, another layer of recovery lies in wait, the sweet, forever surprising truth of endurance.”
― Carrie Snyder, Girl Runner

“Our lives teach us who we are." I have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else's description of reality to supplant your own ... then you might as well be dead.”
― Salman Rushdie