Calista Martin

“That’s one of the problems I think a lot of people have,” he continued. “They associate their misery to the fact that they’re in prison, and it’s not that. I think a lot of my misery was me hating me, and hating me made me hate everyone else. I felt like such a punk, I felt so weak. I really was a coward. I never stood up for myself. I mean, I stood up for myself as we associate standing up for yourself—fighting and violence. But that’s not standing up for yourself. I mean standing up for myself like thinking for myself. Now, I feel more okay with myself. I’m feeling stronger in my abilities every day, and the world just opens up. You really can do anything, you can shape your life any way you want it to be. Because prison isn’t the great prison. Prison is being entrapped by those self-destructive ways of thinking.”
― Laura Bates, Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard

“though we have all encountered our share of grief and troubles, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat — no small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one. Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is the proof.”
― Alice Walker, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems

“This technocratic–instrumental perspective on teaching and teacher learning has advocated deference to so-called educational experts, a teacher-proofing of the curriculum, and a devaluing of teachers’ own innovations and decisionmaking in their classrooms (Herrera & Murry, 2016; Jackson, 2015; Leopard, 2013).”
― Socorro G. Herrera, Accelerating Literacy for Diverse Learners: Classroom Strategies That Integrate Social/Emotional Engagement and Academic Achievement, K–8

“Even today, we tend to think of sake as a miserable hot, sour, yeasty drink we once tasted at the urging of an aunt who took us to a Japanese restaurant in Kansas City.”
― Amy Stewart, The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks