Shelley

“There must be an expiration date on the soul like there is on the body.”
― Laura Imani Messina, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World

“You spent nearly four years on the border, she said. You weren’t just observing a reality, you were participating in it. You can’t exist within a system for that long without being implicated, without absorbing its poison. And let me tell you, it isn’t something that’s just going to slowly go away. It’s part of who you’ve become. So what will you do? All you can do is try to find a place to hold it, a way to not lose some purpose for it all.”
― Francisco Cantú, The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border

“If you're waiting until you feel talented enough to make it, you'll never make it.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“It became a routine: after feeding the cows and hogs, he’d wrap himself up in scarped and don another sweater and then retreat upstairs with his paints and paper. On the coldest days, he’d come down every half hour or so to let his fingers thaw out. Then he’d go back upstairs to continue this work that no one had asked for, work that he did only because there was a part of him that was tuned to the frequency of beauty rather than of usefulness…”
― Molly Patterson, Rebellion