Vaneese

“Sometimes life an pull a lot out of you, Althea. Just squeeze you dry. And if you don't have a way to get back whatever's good and precious to you, it's like losing your soul.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“rest of my teachers maybe did the best they could, but they just needed a lot of help making their best better. There were so many things we needed in those classrooms, in our city, in our state, in our country that our teachers could have provided if they would have gone home and really done their homework. They never once said the words: “economic inequality,” “housing discrimination,” “sexual violence,” “mass incarceration,” “homophobia,” “empire,” “mass eviction,” “post traumatic stress disorder,” “white supremacy,” “patriarchy,” “neo-confederacy,” “mental health,” or “parental abuse,” yet every student and teacher at that school lived in a world shaped by those words.”
― Kiese Laymon, Heavy

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
― Elizabeth Appell

“America seems filled with violent people who like causing people pain but hate when those people tell them that pain hurts.”
― Kiese Laymon, Heavy