Jeff

“Some sorrows can only be cured by suicide or a sonnet.”
― Jorge Amado, Tent of Miracles

“To be there in that stinking cell on a dirty cot with a poor, baldheaded, hairy-handed goat, you couldn't chalk that off to atmosphere.”
― Elliott Chaze, Black Wings Has My Angel

“But that’s the thing. You can play one part in life, but you can’t be that thing. You just playing it. You’re not real. I was a Negro above all else, and Negroes plays their part, too: Hiding. Smiling. Pretending bondage is okay till they’re free, and then what? Free to do what? To be like the white man? Is he so right? Not according to the Old Man. It occurred to me then that you is everything you are in this life at every moment. And that includes loving somebody. If you can’t be your own self, how can you love somebody? How can you be free? That pressed on my heart like a vice right then. Just mashed me down.”
― James McBride, The Good Lord Bird

“[D]oubt is half a writer's life. Two-thirds. Nine-tenths. Another day, another doubt. The only thing I never doubted was the doubt”
― Philip Roth, The Anatomy Lesson