Kelli Lang

“The song just started again, and now I sang it, too. "These strong hands belong to you..."

I found a place between two men. The first was about my age, maybe a little younger, with high cheekbones and small eyes. The other was middle-aged, with a wide forehead and bulb nose, and beside him was a man with a striking face, a square, dimpled chin and high cheekbones... and then there was another, and another--all the kinds of faces in all the colors the world calls black: brown and tan and yellow and orange, copper and bronze and gold.

"These strong hands belong to you..."

They sang--we sang--with no enthusiasm or joy. We used to sing at Bell's, crossing the yard or working on the pile, just like slaves used to sing in Old Slavery, spirituals and work songs, sly lyrics, silly lyrics, yearning for freedom or roasting Massa in nonsense words he couldn't understand. This, though--this was a different kind of singing. I looked from man to man, and they were singing mechanically, eyes front, mouths moving like puppets. Singing this dumb refrain about how much they loved their bosses and loved their work.

Nothing spiritual about this. This was something else altogether.”
― Ben H. Winters, Underground Airlines

“How easily a simple façade can become your life, can become the truth of your life.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“People will hold an opinion because they want to keep the company of others who share the opinion, or because they think it is the respectable opinion, or because they have publicly expressed the opinion in the past and would be embarrassed by a “U-turn,” or because the world would suit them better if the opinion were true, or . . . Perhaps it is better to get on with your family and friends, to avoid embarrassment, or to comfort yourself with fantasies than to believe the truth. But those who approach matters in this way should give up any pretensions to intellectual seriousness. They are not genuinely interested in reality.”
― Jamie Whyte, Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders

“You're into what you're into, I'm into what I'm into. We don't have to be into the same shit, and if you're safe, sane, and happy, then go on and get you some.”
― Matt Fraction, Sex Criminals, Vol. 3: Three the Hard Way