Joey

“She put her free hand briefly across his round cheek. To touch like this was permitted here, among these stateless people, where the rules were unknown and in any case suspended.”
― Monica Ali, Brick Lane

“Clout is the values-free currency of the always-online age—both a substitute for hard cash as well as a conduit to it. Clout is a calculus not of what you do, but of how much bulk you-ness there is in the world. You get clout by playing the victim. You get clout by victimizing others. This is something that is understood by the left and the right. If influence sways, clout squats, taking up space for its own sake.”
― Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World

“…working hard is rarely the means by which enough of us can gain enough access to material resources to become wealthy. One of the ironies of the culture of greed is that the people who profit the most from earnings they have not worked to attain are the most eager to insist that the poor and working classes can only value material resources attained through hard work. Of course, they are merely establishing a belief system that protects their class interests and lessens their accountability to those who are without privilege.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“The thought of writing was always pleasant, but the process was painful. However much she thought of to tell, however the words flowed in her head as she performed her chores, despite the emotion that swelled and throbbed while the storylines formed, the telling was inevitably brief and blunt, a poor thing, stunted as a failed crop.”
― Monica Ali, Brick Lane