Ruby Finlayson

“As we drove back to Enugu, I laughed loudly,above Fela's stringent singing. I laughed because Nsukka's untarred roads coat cars with dust in the harmattan and with sticky mud in the rainy season. Because the tarred roads spring potholes like surprise presents and the air smells of hills and history and the sunlight scatters the sand and turns it into gold dust. Because Nsukka could free something deep inside your belly that would rise up to your throat and come out as freedom song. As laughter.(299)”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It was the kind of night that you only have a handful of times, but your mind insists that of course there were more. Of course there were more nights where you drank ridiculously good wine with people you loved. Of course someone fed you perfectly fried sausage under a real summer moon more than five times. Of course when you laughed, they kissed you, passing you back and forth between them like a present they wanted to share. It hurts too much to think of only having a night like that one just a few times in your lifetime, so you take the memory and stretch it out and make it last.”
― Nghi Vo, On the Fox Roads

“I’m ALIVE. Thinking about it, noticing it, is new. You do things and don’t watch. Then all of a sudden you look and see what you’re doing and it’s the first time, really.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine