Jone

“The colonizer writes the history, winning twice: A theft of land. A theft of witness.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“the mural, there were painted lines for the Underground, like scars stretched across the skin of the infected nation. There were wounds and then there were wounds.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Because I’m not enough, she thought. That was the terrible echo shouting up at her: Fraud, fraud, fraud. She got drunk and talked too much and danced on tables. She had a temper and a sharp tongue, and she often blurted out things she instantly regretted. Worst of all, she suspected that was who she truly was—not so much a bright young thing as a messy young thing.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“The wind swoops over the tenements on Orchard Street, where some of those starry-eyed dreams have died and yet other dreams are being born into squalor and poverty, an uphill climb. It gives a slap to the laundry stretched on lines between tenements, over dirty, broken streets where, even at this hour, hungry children scour the bins for food. The wind has existed forever. It has seen much in this country of dreams and soap ads, old horrors and bloodshed. It has played mute witness to its burning witches, and has walked along a Trail of Tears; it has seen the slave ships release their human cargo, blinking and afraid, into the ports, their only possession a grief they can never lose.”
― Libba Bray, The Diviners