Desi

“Sometimes, perfect moments feel empty — too smooth to hold joy. But the little stumbles, the unexpected errors, that’s where the fun sneaks in and makes the memory worth keeping.”
― Ayoub Imilouane, Tales of Habib the Hoaxter: Sometimes Hoaxed, Always Good for a Laugh

“White anger is something else. It can spit on a kid and appear victim enough to have someone else thrown off the bus. White rage, like all rage born not in defense of dignity but in defense of oppressive power, is manipulative. It is one of many examples of the difference between anger that dominates and anger that liberates […] Anger that dominates relies on fear tactics and abuse to live. It makes no demand of the world except that it bow. This is often because it fears being ruled or overpowered itself. This is no excuse. Holy anger is that which liberates. It marches, chants, and flips tables, demanding wrong be called by its rightful name. It is both passion and calculation, longing for more but for the sake of justice and dignity.”
― Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us

“You might think justice is a form of choosing sides, choosing whom to stand behind. In a way, maybe it is. But justice doesn't choose whose dignity is superior. It upholds the dignity of all those involved, no matter whom it offends or what it costs. Even when demanding retribution, justice does not demean the offender's dignity; it affirms it. It communicates that what has been done is not what the offender was made for.
They, too, were made for beauty. In justice, everyone becomes more human, everyone bears the image of the divine. Justice does not ask us to choose.”
― Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us

“The secret to a beautiful death is to live a beautiful life. Putting your heart out there. Letting it get broken. Taking chances. Making mistakes.... Promise me, kid,...that you'll let yourself live.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover