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Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

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Then Ramona felt her mother's hand on her back. "Ramona," she said gently, "what are we going to do with you?" With red eyes, a swollen face, and a streaming nose, Ramona sat up and glared at her mother. "Love me!"

Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Brave

#beverly cleary #ramona quimby #quotes

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father roger goes for a walk by Franz Wright

#poetry #franz wright

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"Let him be whoever he thinks he is," she said. "That's all anybody could hope for in this world."

Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

#terry pratchett #quotes

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Oh, and one other thing. Those others I mentioned, who have been shown the glittering path? They all said the same thing as you did. They saw that the perfect world is a journey, not a place. I have only one choice, Mau, but I'm good at making it.

Terry Pratchett, Nation

#quotes #terry pratchett

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I need there to be the old man and the baby and the sick woman and the ghost girl, because without them I would go into the dark water right now. I asked for reasons, and here they are, yelling and smelling and demanding, the last people in the world, and I need them.

Terry Pratchett, Nation

#quotes #terry pratchett

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My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside. Amen.

Aimee Bender, "Hymn", Willful Creatures

#quotes #aimee bender #literature

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While she cut the mushrooms, she cried more than she had at the grave, the most so far, because she found the saddest thing of all to be the simple truth of her capacity to move on.

Aimee Bender, "Ironhead", Willful Creatures

#quotes #aimee bender #literature

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one of my favorite poem titles 

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#vievee francis

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Writing a poem is not so very different from digging a hole. It is work. You try to learn what you can from other holes and the people who dug before you. The difficulty comes from people who do not dig or spend time in holes thinking that the holes ought not to be so wet, or dark, or full of worms. “Why is your hole not lined with light?” Sir, it is a hole.

Heather Christle, The Crying Book

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I did not want anyone to know me.

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

#lit #quotes #james baldwin

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"Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden," Jacques said. And then: "I wonder why."

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

#lit #quotes #james baldwin

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"You find that Paris is not of this century?" he asked with a smile. His smile made me feel a little foolish. "Well," I said, "Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn't what you feel in New York—" He was smiling. I stopped. "What do you feel in New York?" he asked. "Perhaps you feel," I told him, "all the time to come. There's such power there, everything is in such movement. You can't help wondering—I can't help wondering—what it will all be like—many years from now." "Many years from now? When we are dead and New York is old?" "Yes," I said. "When everyone is tired, when the world—for Americans—is not so new."

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

#james baldwin #lit #quotes

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I ached abruptly, intolerably, with a longing to go home; not to that hotel, in one of the alleys of Paris, where the concierge barred the way with my unpaid bill; but home, home across the ocean, to things and people I knew and understood; to those things, those places, those people which I would always, helplessly, and in whatever bitterness of spirit, love above all else.

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

#james baldwin #lit #quotes

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But it was not the room's disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief. I do not know how I knew this, but I knew it at once; perhaps I knew it because I wanted to live.

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room