Joshua Dowling

“I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion's tail hidden in his words. He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Perhaps he is a fool or a coward but almost everybody is one or the other and most people are both.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

“We stared at each other across a narrow space that was full of danger, that almost seemed to roar, like flame.

‘Come,’ he said.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room