Neada

“they had not yet been destroyed as Africans completely. Slavery was the curse of their existence; but they had not been robbed yet of that which had been characteristically theirs. They tolerated the baptism and modest garments imposed on them by the French Catholic laws; but in the evenings, they made their cheap fabrics into alluring costumes, made jewelry of animal bones and bits of discarded metal which they polished to look like gold; and the slave cabins of Pointe du Lac were a foreign country, an African coast after dark, in which not even the coldest overseer would want to wander.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“It’s easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you’d be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight. And more often than not, it’s lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul.”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, Acheron

“This is home until I can escape it, you’ve suddenly realized that you know Tonkee. You’ve known her, on some level, all along. “Binof. Leadership. Yumenes,” you snap, and each word seems to hit Tonkee like a blow. She flinches and takes a step back, then another. Then a third, until she’s pressed against the apartment’s smooth crystalline wall. The look on her face is one of horror, or perhaps sorrow so great that it might as well be horror. Past a certain point, it’s all the same thing. “I didn’t think you remembered,” she says, in a small voice. You get to your feet, palms planted on the table. “It’s not chance that you started traveling with us. It can’t be.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“It is entirely possible for wise and educated persons to disagree about points of fact. But facts are stubborn things. Whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter facts and evidence. We must strip away the rest. The happiness of the people is the aim of any good government.”
― Jeff Wheeler, The Void of Muirwood