Harmony Farrell

“For isn't it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime?”
― Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

“Put your vocabulary on the top shelf of your toolbox, and don't make any conscious effort to improve it... One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your shot ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of pre-meditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed. Make yourself a solemn promise right now that you'll never use 'emolument' when you mean 'tip' and you'll never say 'John stopped long enough to perform an act of excretion' when you mean 'John stopped long enough to take a shit'. If you believe 'take a shit' would be considered offensive or inappropriate by your audience, feel free to say 'John stopped long enough to move his bowels'...”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“What would you expect to find when the muzzle that has silenced the voices of black men is removed?
That they would chant your praises?
Did you think that when those heads that our fathers had forcibly bowed down to the ground were raised again, you would find adoration in their eyes?”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“When I say "I am filled with rage," the criminal says, "But why?"And when I blow things up and make life generally unlivable for the criminal (is my life not unlivable too?) the criminal is shocked, surprised. But nothing can erase my rage- not an apology, not a sum of money, not the death of the criminal- for this wrong can never be made right, and only the impossible can make me still: can a way be found to make what happened not have happened?”
― Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place