Maggi Rohde

“Revealing the lie at the heart of the American idea, however, occasions an opportunity to tell a different and a better story. It affords us a chance to excavate the past and to examine the ruins to find, or at least glimpse, what made us who we are. Baldwin insisted, until he died, that we reach for a different story. We should tell the truth about ourselves, he maintained, and that would release us into a new possibility.”
― Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

“Stories aren't peaceful things. Stories don't care how shy you are. They don't care how insecure you are, either. Stories find their way out eventually. All you gotta do is turn 'em loose.”
― Natalie Lloyd, A Snicker of Magic

“the gods did not desire flawless souls, but great ones. I think that very darkness is where the greatness grows from, as flowers from the soil. I am not sure, in fact, if greatness can bloom without it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls