Flame in the Dark (Soulwood, #3)

by Faith Hunter

“My mama taught me to be polite and to not lie. Those two things aren’t always mutually agreeable.”

Home is choice. A chance to grow. To learn. Home, meaning my life and where and how I’ll live it.

Teaching a child to be free wasn’t a matter of telling her once and being done. It was a long battle of opportunities offered and worldviews explored.

squished the guilt down, and then ignored the guilt that came from ignoring guilt.

Being in John’s bed had been unpleasant, but I’d thought it was worth it to be safe from the man who wanted to own me. It was the kind of compromise women made all over the world: sex and nurturing and nursing for safety. Prostitution of a different kind.

“Programming can be hardwired into a body,” I said, not looking up. “It’s something that has to be fought, day in and day out, forever. Like an addiction one hates, has defeated, yet still has to battle.”

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.

“Lots of the church folk beat their young’uns. But ninety-nine point nine times out of a hundred, a whuppin’ isn’t necessary. It’s the adult’s emotional problem, not the kid needing a beating.”