When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland Quotes

“The tiny snowflakes seemed not to be falling at all, just hovering in the air. So few flakes and so minute, it was as if God had reached into his pockets and emptied out his lint and dust. And that was floating around in the air.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“The suicide attempt, like the rest of Dessah’s life, hadn’t worked out. She had awakened the next morning groggy as hell and merely rested. Wasn’t any need to tell anybody what she’d done. The outcome hadn’t been what she wanted, but it was what she got. That next day, all she remembered feeling was stupid.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“When you get to the house . . .” The child’s head was already saying yes before he could finish his question. “You gone come back for us, right? You gone come back for us, right?”
Milan could only smile and touch the boy’s face. He had his mother’s face, although shades lighter. He didn’t know the answer. And looking at him, he wasn’t quite sure which one of them he would have been answering.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“The boys didn’t say a word. They stared at their mother, through to the back of her eyes, looking for her, but unable to find her in there. It was frustrating for them, seeing her familiar face and her familiar smile, and how odd it was feeling she was gone.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“Yuck. Apple Martinis. Green rubbing alcohol in a crooked glass.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“On any woman, the shine was brilliant. But, in contrast to their dark skin, it truly was the Milky Way of watches.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“He was watching. But her muscles in her back would not let her turn around to let him see in her eyes what being in love with him had done to her heart.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“Dessah pulled her legs up to her chest and laid her head between her knees. The mother that used to live inside of her didn’t feel like feeling anything. The mother that used to live inside of her didn’t feel like crying about or even imagining the state her young children were found in. Whoever had taken the place of the mother that used to live inside of her was someone who would be upset that the ugly gray house with her children in it had not burned to the ground.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“The River Li—like my name—sometimes lies green and quiet and flat like a long, winding mirror, without so much as a ripple from a current underneath or the wind from above. In these moments, it is as if God is holding his breath.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“The day was several shades of gray depending upon where the eye wandered, and the streets were wet. But in a lower part of the sky, where the sun was yawning, the clouds were pink, lavender, and slow in moving into darkness.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“Sherry would have been attractive, but hard living was not only worn on her yellow face. It was in the wrinkled frailty of her neck, like new-born skin. It was the crooked movement of her mouth when she talked, as if she spoke to someone to the left of her. And her ashy, knobby hands that smelled of cigarette smoke, especially the right one. It was the stiff way she walked with her shoulders so high, as if she had gotten used to being rejected and run off the property. The hard living was in her movements, even in her spirit.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“She’s dead.”
Dessah was, at first, taken aback by the comment.
“Did you hear me, Dessah? I said, ‘My mama is dead’.”
With her cousin wailing and breathing hard into her ear, for a second, Dessah thought she might slide down the wall of the bathroom where she was standing, slide right on down to the floor in grief. But the next second came, and all she could say was, “So there’s no reason for me to come up there now, is it?”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“Dessah smiled, but only for a brief second, realizing that children nowadays knew that they were poor. If the children were not sure, the music videos that they watched made sure that they were sure.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland

“Dessah’s mind kept taking her to places she didn’t want to go. Hearing about her aunt’s heart attack, all of a sudden, her body was awake as if she had drunk three cups of strong black coffee. But the idea of her aunt dying and her daughter taking control of the house her mother had paid for with her very life felt as if she drank the whole damn pot.”
― Holliday Vann, When Sexy Came Black to Cleveland