Emily Calvert

“Black boys don't get a long boyhood. It ends where white fear begins, brought on by deepening voices, broadening backs, and coarsening hair in new places beneath our clothing. Then there's our skin, which provides little middle ground.”
― Brian Broome, Punch Me Up to the Gods

“Her mother lived in a world of black and white, and Eva knew that neither of those colors existed, not really; it was all a spectrum of gray.”
― Kristin Harmel, The Book of Lost Names

“Resentment was an antidote to gloominess, as it was for sadness, melancholy, despair, etc.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“One of the reasons I took this trip is to prove to myself that I am allowed to take up space in the world. I used to believe that the space I occupied was conditional. That I had to please anyone and everyone around me in order to exist because I had made the horrible mistake of being different.”
― Brian Broome, Punch Me Up to the Gods