“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.”
― The Fire Next Time
― The Fire Next Time
“To accept one's past—one's history—is not the same thing as drowning it it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.”
― The Fire Next Time
― The Fire Next Time
“If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it bring must be borne. And at this level of experience one's bitterness begins to be palatable, and hatred becomes too heavy a sack to carry.”
― The Fire Next Time
― The Fire Next Time
“The world has enough women who know how to be smart. It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world has enough women who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct.”
―
―
“The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality—for this touchstone can be only oneself.”
― The Fire Next Time
― The Fire Next Time
Shaunda’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Shaunda’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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