“The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life–or at least, shoved up so hard against someone else’s life that you might as well have your face pressed against their window.”

The kind of laugh that spoke of a conspiracy.

I chose to believe that God, a benign God, would understand our sufferings and forgive us our trespasses.

You decided what you thought you’d like me to do, and you went ahead and did it. You did what everyone else does. You decided for me.

Push yourself. Don’t settle. Wear those stripy legs with pride. And if you insist on settling down with some ridiculous bloke, make sure some of this is squirreled away somewhere.

I told him I loved him,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And he just said it wasn’t enough.” Her eyes were wide and bleak . “How am I supposed to live with that?

Just live well. Just live

Try to write at least 500 words a day. You may ditch 499 of them tomorrow, but you will still be moving forward.

It overwhelmed me and tore at my heart and my stomach and my head and it pulled me under, and I couldn’t bear it. I honestly thought I couldn’t bear it.

I had that. I could almost feel the miles between us shrinking, as if we were at two ends of some invisible elastic thread.

I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual.

He smelt of the sun, as if it had seeped deep into his skin, and I found myself inhaling silently, as if he were something delicious.

And then, just like that, my heart broke. My face crumpled, my composure went and I held him tightly and I stopped caring that he could feel the shudder of my sobbing body because grief swamped me.

Just hold on. Just for a minute.” “Are you all right ?” I found my gaze dropping towards his chair, afraid some part of him was pinched, or trapped, that I had got something wrong.

How could you live each day knowing that you were simply whiling away the days until your own death?

You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.

I will never, ever regret the things I’ve done. Because most days, all you have are places in your memory that you can go to.

But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

If we want to defend the country, we have to defend against who’s coming in.

I could easily have decided that life was cruel, that being black meant everything was stacked against me.

The miscegenation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women.

Nobody wants to be in a room or their business to be funded because they’re a woman. They don’t want to be discriminated against because they’re a woman.

I’m fighting against becoming soft. That’s the worst thing you can say to a basketball player.

If you come to me and say, ‘Hey look I’m a racist,’ or ‘I discriminate against blacks,’ or ‘I don’t like you because you’re African American.

When you’re playing against a whole bunch of All-Stars, it’s like a video game. There’s so much talent on the floor at once.