Cecily Brizz

“Some people, some events, make you lose your head. They’re like guillotines, cutting your life in two, the dead and the alive, the before and the after.”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

“Parents, especially those as distracted as her father, desperately needed things to run smoothly and were so inclined to believe the system they had created was working fine that they assumed a normality even when surrounded by clues to the contrary.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Each time Kostas pushed her on the swing, watching her fly away from him, up into the air, laughing and kicking her legs, Ada would shout, ‘Higher, Daddy, higher!’ Struggling with the fear that she might flip over or the metal chains might break off, he would push her harder, and then, as the swing came back, he would have to move out of the way to make space for her. And so it still was, this back and forth, with the father ceding space to his daughter so she could have her freedom.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Reason and law don’t mean much when white folk want their way.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout