Joseph Hillyard

“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“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

“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