Beatriz Baptista

“Cyrus also worried that the whole idea of gratitude was possibly classist, or worse. Did a poor Syrian child, whose living and dying had been indelibly shaped by the murderous whims of evil men, qualify for grace only if she possessed a superhuman ability to look beyond her hardship and notice the beauty of a single flower growing through a pile of rubble? And would the gratitude for that flower be contaminated by the awareness, or ignorance, of the bodies turning to soil beneath it?”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“What I want to say is that I was happy. Not always, not even mostly. But I did know real, deep joy. Maybe everyone gets a certain amount to use up over a lifetime, and I just used my lifetime’s allotment especially quickly, with Leila. But I don’t think it was a tragedy, my life. Tragedies are relentless. Nobody could ask for more than what I’ve had.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“How do we move through all this beauty without destroying it?”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“People depend on their misfortunes. We curse them, but we're actually wedded to them, proud of them even.”
― Yūko Tsushima, Of Dogs and Walls