LauraBeth

“For the first time in my life, I realized telling the truth was way different from finding the truth, and finding the truth had everything to do with revisiting and rearranging words. Revisiting and rearranging words didn't only require vocabulary; it required will, and maybe courage. Revised word patterns were revised thought patterns. Revised thought patterns shaped memory. I knew, looking at all those words, that memories were there, I just had to rearrange, add, subtract, sit, and sift until I found a way to free the memory.”
― Kiese Laymon, Heavy

“Our superpower, I was told since I was a child, was perseverance, the ability to survive no matter how much they took from us. I never understood how surviving was our collective superpower when white folk made sure so many of us didn't survive. And those of us who did survive practiced bending so much that breaking seemed inevitable.”
― Kiese Laymon, Heavy

“That’s the part I was stuck in, the part where you accept the apology because it’s easier than addressing the root of the problem,”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“I never heard the words, "sexual violence" or "violent sex" or "sexual abuse" from one family member, one teacher, or one preacher but my body knew sexual violence and violent sex were as wrong as anything police or white folk could do to us.”
― Kiese Laymon, Heavy