LauraBeth

“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

“On the way home, I wanted to ask you if we were deserving of different kinds of liberation, different modes of memory, different policy, different practices, and different relationships to honesty. I wanted to ask you if we were also deserving of different books. I am writing a different book to you because books, for better and worse, are how we got here, and I am afraid of speaking any of this to your face.”
― Kiese Laymon, Heavy

“I learned you haven't read anything if you've only read something once or twice. Reading things more than twice was the reader version of revision.”
― 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