“I understand now that history only moves forward in a straight line when we learn from it. Otherwise it loops past the same mistakes over and over again,”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“The dead always have stories to tell. They just need the living to listen.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“I don’t believe that history holds easy answers or simple lessons, because those answers and lessons are stretched out over thousands—millions—of untold stories. But I do believe that if we seek those stories out, and if we listen to them and talk to each other with open hearts and minds, we can start to heal. I believe that good people working together can create meaningful change.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“Only one of us gets to be bitchy this early in the morning and I’ve got dibs.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“The lives that ended that night mattered. It was a mistake for this city to try to forget, and it’s an even bigger one to pretend everything’s fine now. Black men and women are dying today for the same reasons they did in 1921. And we have to call that out, Rowan. Every single time.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“history only moves forward in a straight line when we learn from it. Otherwise it loops past the same mistakes over and over again.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“I understand now that history only moves forward in a straight line when we learn from it. Otherwise it loops past the same mistakes over and over again.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“There's always been a love-hate thing between me and running. First off, if you don't get started at the ass crack of dawn, the Oklahoma summer sun will melt you into a puddle of good intentions. Plus, it hurts. I mean, have you ever seen a happy jogger? We scowl. We pant and grimace. In fact, if you ever see one of us smiling, you should assume we're a complete psychopath and run for your life.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“That girl’s like a skeeter bite on the ass!”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“she’s nonverbal until her first cup of coffee kicks in. Before that, you’re pretty much taking your life into your own hands if you try to engage her in conversation.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“But we wanted you to fill up on good things before you had to face the bad.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“There's no room for us in your bubble.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“What's that?" he asked.
"A balance sheet," I said. "To keep track of your payments."
He asked whether Pop had written it or me. When I answered truthfully, he handed the paper back like the useless thing it was. "Thank you," he said. "I won't be needing this."
Which took me by surprise and set me stammering how it was proof he was making his payments, and how he should take it because it was the right and proper way to do business.
"The rules aren't the same for me as they are for you," Joseph replied, shaking his head. "Don't you know that, Will?" Which put my nose out of joint so bad that I told him he was being rude, and that I was only trying to do him a favor at no small risk to myself.
Joseph's face went blank as the cloudless sky overhead. He eyed the receipt. Said, "Thank you, Mr. William. But I can't accept." And got back on his bicycle.
"That all you got to say?" I near shouted, frustrated at how easily he'd turned my good intentions into a fool's errand. And the quickest flash of hate you ever did see danced across the dark of his eyes.
I stood there, feeling awkward and a fool. Joseph put one foot on a pedal and said, real quiet, "If you'll excuse me, I've a funeral to attend."
Only then did I notice the band of mourning black around his upper arm.
"Who died?" I asked stupidly.
Joseph's eyes were flat. "Nobody important, Mr. William. Only a Negro boy like me.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“The lives that ended that night mattered. It was a mistake for this city to try to forget, and it's an even bigger one to pretend everything's fine now. Black men and women are dying today for the same reasons they did in 1921. And we have to call them out, Rowan. Every single time.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“Well, if 'exciting means drama and people dying and doctors and nurses rushing around like in the movies, then no, it wasn't. But if it means doing something that seems small now but can make a big difference in the long run, then it was.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, racist skinheads, neo-Confederates, the KKK - up until that morning, I'd had no idea those were all different things, or that there were so many different ways to hate black people. Racists, it turned out, were into diversity after all.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
“Yes, Dad was white, but Mom wasn’t. Which meant that to the rest of the world I was black. At Mama Ray’s, I wasn’t the awkward line in a poem. I fit the meter. I rhymed.”
― Jennifer Latham, quote from Dreamland Burning
Jennifer Latham
Born place: in The United States
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“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...
This is the inter-related structure of reality.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., quote from Letter from the Birmingham Jail
“themselves. They work towards unattainable goals and assume too much responsibility. They try to perform several tasks correctly and to the same high standard. When told that their expectations are too high, they reply that they wouldn’t be doing their job properly if they didn’t meet those expectations. And since they’ve convinced themselves that they should be able to meet them, their ears are closed to advice.”
― Yasutaka Tsutsui, quote from Paprika
“S-o pornesc din nou pe drumurile de-aici,împovărat de propriu-mi viciu,de viciul acesta care şi-a înfipt în mine rădăcinile dureroase încă de la vârsta când am început să judec,şi care urcă spre cer,mă loveşte,mă răstoarnă,mă târăşte după el.
Ultima inocenţă şi ultima sfială.A fost rostită.A nu-i oferii lumii lehamitea şi trăirile mele.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from A Season in Hell
“This is an existential crisis rooted not only in race—which the corner has slowly transcended—but in the unresolved disaster of the American rust-belt, in the slow, seismic shift that is shutting down the assembly lines, devaluing physical labor, and undercutting the union pay scale. Down on the corner, some of the walking wounded used to make steel, but Sparrows Point isn’t hiring the way it once did. And some used to load the container ships at Seagirt and Locust Point, but the port isn’t what she used to be either. Others worked at Koppers, American Standard, or Armco, but those plants are gone now. All of which means precious little to anyone thriving in the postindustrial age. For those of us riding the wave, the world spins on an axis of technological prowess in an orbit of ever-expanding information. In that world, the men and women of the corner are almost incomprehensibly useless and have been so for more than a decade now. How”
― David Simon, quote from The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood
“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
Prey
As a Man Thinketh
The Gift of the Magi
NOS4A2
Americanah
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