Philip Cunningham III

“In fact, she was both my first and second words: Umma, then Mom. I called to her in two languages. Even then I must have known that no one would ever love me as much as she would.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn't care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. When I got hurt, she felt it so deeply, it was as though it were her own affliction. She was guilty only of caring too much. I realize this now, only in retrospect. No one in this would would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“What is a game?" Marx said. "It's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“The statue serves as an act of defiance. The sculptor knew exactly what he was doing. Ezekiel wanted to portray an “accurate” history of the loyal, happy slave, not the “lies” told through books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which showed the brutality of slavery. Instead, the artist said the monument represents the South, which fought “for a constitutional right, and not to uphold slavery.”54 Ezekiel created a monument to white supremacy at the final resting place for soldiers who fought and died to create a more just society, including African American soldiers. Inscribed on the monument is the Latin phrase “Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Catoni,” by the Roman poet Lucan. The English translation reads, “The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the conquered cause pleased Cato.” My Roman history is weak, but the historian Jamie Malanowski broke down the meaning: You have to know your Latin history to know they’re talking about the Roman Civil War, that the dictator Julius Caesar won, and that Cato was pleased with the republicans’ sacrifice. With that background in mind the inscription is a ‘fuck you’ to the Union. It’s that sneaky little Latin phrase essentially saying ‘we were right and you were wrong, and we’ll always be right and you’ll always be wrong.’55”
― Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause