Kin Quotes

“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

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

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

“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

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

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

“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

“I can't remember her at all. You say her name so easily, but it hurts me to hear. I was so cheerful five seconds ago, but it's like my mama is waiting for me, dead, around every corner.”
― 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”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Our mama didn't leave me and Lurelia, but she couldn't love none of us. She was born not even ten years after the Civil War. The ground was too dry for love to grow.”
― 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’s the same. And when what you want is the same.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“Oh no, no, no. I think about the Old Testament all the time, but I don’t care to preach about the world before Jesus. Having a son mellowed God, you know.” I hadn’t thought of it in that way, but I could see her logic. “That’s why I hate what happened to our mama. God so loved the world that He gave His only son. It wasn’t just being a father that made him a better God, it was the loving. Me and Lurelia missed out on being loved but also she missed out on loving us. That’s why I put these roses all over the place. They were her favorite, and I want something here for her to love.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“I know you think you are all alone in this world”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

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

“An "I love you" that is out in the world unanswered bedevils a space, like the ghost of a whore in Mississippi. It's lonely, then miserable, then angry.”
― 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

“it’s only home dirt that can pull you back.”
― 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

“When you lose your mama”
― 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

“She also tells me to tell you that you should not read the Bible by yourself because it is only confusing when you don’t have anyone to decipher with. She also says that you shouldn’t read it with Bobo because reading the Bible with a man only leaves you chained to a stove somewhere. She says this means all men, even preachers. Now she says especially them.”
― 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

“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

“Choosing this row, I believed it to be the best seat amongst the worst. But by accident, I situated myself in the worst among the best. The distance between the seats was shorted than my arm.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“this is how life works—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.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin

“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

“was just six months old, so new that I had lived inside the womb longer than I had been breathing air.”
― Tayari Jones, Kin