t.

“I'd been mistaken when I'd thought of them as victims. They'd stayed behind precisely to avoid such a fate. When I think of those ten days in the life of that city, I think of the moment when a man who'd been lynched, almost killed, found the strength to open his eyes. The moment when, spitting out fragments of teeth along with a mouthful of blood, he held his failing eyes open with his fingers so he could look his attacker straight in the face. The moment when he appeared to remember that he has a face and a voice, to recollect his own dignity, which seemed the memory of a previous life.”
― Han Kang, Human Acts

“Life with a cheat code isn't life. Our existence isn't something to be engineered or optimized for the avoidance of pain. That's what it is to be human - the beauty and the pain, each meaningless without the other.”
― Blake Crouch, Recursion

“To know a man properly, you must know the shape of his hurt - the specific wound around which his person has been formed like a scab.”
― Kei Miller, Augustown

“Stories are critical, Kirabo. The minute we fall silent, someone will fill the silence for us.”
― Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, A Girl Is a Body of Water