Kin Quotes

“People who are loved well always think there is more out there for them to enjoy.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“We come to love people in many ways. Much is made of the burning love that hits you like a smoldering remnant of a star hurled down to earth. Yet this is not the only type of love any more than the camellia is the only flower. There is the love that blooms from decency, and from that love, passion.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Hearts grow strings because of what you know that's the same, what happened to you that's the same. And when what you want is the same.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“But this is how life work--the women who would be capable mothers too often don't want kids. And too many of those with children probably should have just sat that one out. Luckily, most were in between.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“When your mama is in heaven there is nothing to stop her from loving you - not a man, not a job, not whatever she wanted to be doing but she had kids instead. When the sun shines, you can feel that pure love on you. It tastes like sugarcane.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Love requires courage, but if fortifies you at the same time. I don't know anything else in the world that yields the exact same treasure it demands.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“I struggled to decide if secrets and lies were twins”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“While I was tended to, I was never mothered. Many people suffered far more, even people raised at the knees of their actual mamas. Still, the hole in my spirit made me into the girl I was and then the woman that I am. One day, I will grow a person within myself and love that little person so hard that it would bind her to me like rich dirt in the corner of a canvas satchel.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“When a woman is said to be trifling in the tone of voice reserved for a man, there’s no coming back from it.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“you gave me the care that people save for kin.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“But now Aunt Irene thinks that the thing that should have let us know that something was wrong was that nothing was wrong. This was Louisiana in 1941. We were colored. Something was always wrong.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Even if you have a bad mother like Babydoll had, you can use her to know what you are not.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“No matter who your mama is, or how long she’s been gone, you can’t help but miss her. When you are born, she marks you with her milk, even if you never tasted her breast. That’s not hoodoo, it’s just the way the body and the spirit come together to make you a person.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“unhappiness was the backbone of most jobs.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“You should do everything; you just don't want to seem like a woman who will do anything.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“So there we were, kitty-corner from Hattie Lee's address, each one of us eating her heart out over her whole motherless life. We were also fatherless, but this didn't bite the same way. When you don't have your mother, you don't really know who you are. Even if you have a bad mother like Babydoll had, you can use her to know what you are not.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“I was a caterpillar halfway to being a butterfly. Not yet magnificent”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“You got enough? Because I got a little extra over here in Titty Savings and Loan. She patted her bosom, where she had apparently stashed a few dollars.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Returning to their lives of girlish uncertainty, they were three misses and I, on this side of the doorway, was Mrs. Franklin McHenry. A person could refer to me now without speaking any of the names I had been born with.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“If you have ever experienced motherlove, you can never forget the fragrance of it.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“I was halfway back to the shack when I realized that I had envelopes and paper, but no pencil to write with. It was all I could do not to cry at the story of my life.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“She had told me this story more than once, but each time her voice cracked like a hot glass touched with ice water.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“This was Louisiana in 1941. We were colored. Something was always wrong. —”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“What you have the same isn't what binds you. Hearts grow strings because of what you know that's the same, what happened to you that the same. And when what you want is the same.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“I didn't even say she had died, because that was something a person did. A person lived; a person died. I said she was dead because that's forever. That's what she was. My mother was dead.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Because you showed me that you can love a stranger as deep as you can love somebody you have been knowing for years, maybe easier.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“There are words for everything,' he said. 'If you want to express yourself badly enough.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Getting married on top of secrets is like spraying perfume without washing first.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Granny's speech was different when she had her teeth in. It was like listening to someone try to talk left-handed.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“My husband held me in his arms and in his wide heart as I revealed every truth that language allowed.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin