The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls Quotes

“I keep wondering how you find compassion for your own self when you go against what's good in you.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“Sometimes life an pull a lot out of you, Althea. Just squeeze you dry. And if you don't have a way to get back whatever's good and precious to you, it's like losing your soul.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“It's one of those rare Splenda moments in here. Little imitations of life that, depending on your tastes, can be a kind of substitute for what you're missing on the outside, like real friends, real family, and something really worth celebrating.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“Our scripture was about Jacob wresting with the angel, right? So I'm thinking, but ain't we all wrestling with something? And for some of us, it sure as shit ain't angels. Am I right?”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“My Big Mama raised us. She'd tell me and my two girl cousins every time we left the house, 'Y'all be careful. It's dangerous being a girl out there.'” Gale lets out a hard, sharp laugh that turns into a wet cough. “What I found out was the danger wasn't always out there, if you get what I'm saying. But it was like I just knew not to say a word 'bout nothing 'cause people don't wanna know that shit.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“But certain shit ain't got no hope of coming into existence no matter what you're told or how many different ways you speak it. Some of us just got Kick Me signs tacked to our backs straight outta the womb, and, sure enough, life just rears back and puts its foot clean up your ass. I'm talking ankle deep. And ain't no getting it out.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“Boys and men are earth and stone,” my mama used to say. “But you girls, us women, we’re water. We can wear away earth and stone, if it comes to it.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“Burn it all down. Let it go.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“There isn't just safety in numbers like that; there's grace.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“ain’t trying to say nothing but what she said, Althea, which is if anybody cared enough to look, they could’ve saw my dangers.” She stops, like she just hit on something. “You know, maybe it’d be easier if they was just straight-up monsters, right? Walking ’round with horns like the devil, so everybody could see ’em real easy.” She raises her hands to her head and makes horns with her fingers, then laughs. “I’ll tell you, this old girl’s seen a lot in this raggedy-ass life of mine, but I still can’t monsterfy somebody that mean something to me, even when I been gutted by their horns. Now, that right there’s what really fucks with you.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“I've been working on myself for years. Maybe, finally, something is working on me.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“That river runs through the place where I was easier to define. The place that made me who I used to be. Althea Marie Butler-Cochran: round, dimpled face; rounding, dimpled body; smooth, light brown skin; wife; mother; daughter; sister; mighty force of nature.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“Sometimes life can pull a lot out of you, Althea. Just squeeze you dry. And if you don’t have a way to get back whatever’s good and precious to you, it’s like losing your soul.” She”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“But he’s prone to a black-hole-in-the-soul kind of darkness that can suck every bit of light from this world.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“Eighteen. Running away to marry Proctor, thinking I’d never have to do anything I didn’t want to do again. That’s how young I was.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“Skin-scorching grease popping as she put the floured, salted, peppered, and paprikaed chicken parts in the skillet with steady hands that had done this hundreds of times before. I wanted to see her do it hundreds and hundreds of times more. How could a God say, No, there’ll be no more for you?”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“Boys and men are earth and stone," my mama used to say. "But you girls, us women, we're water. We can wear away earth and stone, if it comes to it.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“But certain shit ain’t got no hope of coming into existence no matter what you’re told or how many different ways you speak it. Some of us just got Kick Me signs tacked to our backs straight outta the womb, and, sure enough, life just rears back and puts its foot clean up your ass. I’m talking ankle deep. And ain’t no getting it out.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

“And I think, What did I want to be? Definitely not a bookkeeper. That's something I just ended up becoming after years and years of night school. And a restaurant owner? That was Proctor's dream, at first. A mother? I think I just became everything I am. Was. But at least I was someone out there.”
― Anissa Gray, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls