Joseph Hillyard

“It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.”
― Nella Larsen, Passing

“Late into the night I write and the pages of my notebook swell from all the words I’ve pressed onto them.
It almost feels like the more I bruise the page the quicker something inside me heals.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X

“failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“In religious terms, each time the oppressed chooses to forgive the oppressor, each time, on those rare occasions, they find themselves having a modicum of power over them and offering them mercy instead of vengeance, might be interpreted as an act of mercy in favor of the oppressor. Black history is replete with these instances.”
― Farah Jasmine Griffin, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature