The Many Lives of Mama Love Quotes

“Real power is about using your power to shine a light on other people so they can find their own power.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“I know I have a lot more inner work to do. I thought I had to convince the whole world that I am more than the worst thing I have done, the worst person I have been, but really I just have to convince myself.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“The worst thing I’ve ever done is build an identity out of the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“I thought what I craved was approval and praise, but it’s simpler than that. I craved acceptance. For all the different versions of me I have been, and all the many lives I have lived.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Because how we take care of broken people matters. Fundamentally, I believe, it determines our own humanity. And we don’t just sentence someone to a year or five years or ten years—we turn every sentence into a life sentence. Every sentence is a life sentence.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“The truth is I’ve only ever had one addiction. The white whale of addictions: escape. From as far back as I can remember there has always been a better place than wherever I am. A better me than whoever I was. Books helped me escape when I was young. Not just because of my precocious angsty-ness and early onset existential crises; they were literal escape.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Recidivism was the only financially viable path forward. The only way for the government to win is for the inmates to lose. It’s as simple as that.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Writing was always the only way for me to make sense of my childhood, my family, my fears, my emotions, my vast and confusing interior world.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Escape was always my real addiction, the one true high. Books were just my gateway drug.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“I am telling myself what I most need to hear. That I’m human, and humans make mistakes.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Power doesn’t have anything to prove,”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“I would sacrifice my life for theirs, but I couldn't stop using drugs for them. I don't know how to reconcile those two truths.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“I realize suddenly that I’m tired of pretending I am anything other than who I am. People may love me or hate me, praise me or criticize me, reward me or punish me. All I can be is who I am now, and then work hard to become the person I most want to be.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“I have always felt like an actor playing the role of me. My whole life I had pretended to be a beautiful, happy, shiny person in the hopes that would somehow make me a beautiful, happy, shiny person. I fit in everywhere because people love beautiful, happy, shiny people. But the problem with me trying to fit in everywhere is that I have never actually felt like I belonged anywhere. Or with anyone.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Everyone’s parents loved me, except my own.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“stalked all these lives that weren’t mine. Even the sad people in books”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“When I read, I could pretend I was someone else. I was”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“There's no doubt our 'justice' system is broken. There's no doubt that as a society we ask people to pay far beyond what their criminal sentences ask of them. It's a truth we all need to examine. Because how we take care of broken people matters. Findamentally, I believe, it determines our own humanity.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“If you look at any list of the red flags for domestic violence you will find this jail’s operating manual. Embarrassing or putting you down; looking at you or acting in ways that scare you; controlling who you see, where you go, or what you do; keeping you or discouraging you from seeing your friends or families; taking your money or refusing to give you money for expenses; preventing you from making your own decisions; telling you that you are a bad parent or threatening to harm or take away your children; preventing you from working or attending school; blaming you for the abuse, or acting like it’s not really happening; destroying your property or threatening to hurt you; intimidating you with guns, knives, or other weapons; pressuring you to have sex when you don’t want to or do things sexually you’re not comfortable with. Check. Check. And check. The result is a unit full of traumatized and triggered women. And the guards have no idea just how similar they are to the men that, one way or another, landed these women in G block.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“If I am only as sick as my secrets, well then, I am in hospice.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Spending a week listening to Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama alternate between teasing each other for not acting holy enough, and then crying over the profound suffering that is the human experience, changes me. Every day I walk away with some new nugget about the way I want to live my life—in service to others, accepting that I am always a work in progress, being more compassionate and more forgiving. Living in gratitude. Every day of the dialogues seems like a horoscope—there’s something specific relating to my life that I need to hear.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“I am just one of seven billion people living their lives. Making big mistakes over and over. Growing and shrinking and growing again.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“But you can’t outrun yourself,”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“always loved school. I played varsity lacrosse and field hockey. I could be friends with the cool kids and the smart kids and the sporty kids and even the stoner kids although I didn’t like to get stoned. I could cross social lines seamlessly and be whoever people needed me to be. I’d like to say it was a gift born of my curiosity about people, but in truth it was more of a response to trauma. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to feel safe. So I needed every single person I met to like me, and if I could make them love and need me, even better.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“I loved fully until someone hurt me, and then I just pretended to love while remaining vigilant for the next bout of pain.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“There is no other person I’d rather be than who I am. And no other life I’d rather live than the beautiful mess of a life I’m living.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Someone who’s been behind bars already knows that crime doesn’t pay. They’ve lost everything and appreciate the simple joy of having a job. They’ve dealt with prison politics, so office politics present no challenge. They understand power structures. Each is on probation or parole, so they follow all the rules. They’re used to getting up early and working hard for no pay, so they appreciate minimum wage. But most important, every one of them has something to prove. That they are valuable, worthy, and so much more than a criminal record.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“There’s more alcohol at a Little League game than at a Super Bowl party.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“People may love me or hate me, praise me or criticize me, reward me or punish me. All I can be is who I am now, and then work hard to become the person I most want to be. I’m tired of hustling for an”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“My addiction to escape is in remission, but I stay vigilant in case it shows up again. For now, there is no other place I’d rather be than where I am.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing