Frying Plantain Quotes

“She had to know what I’d only just now discovered: that peace could only exist in this family when we lied about everything, at least to each other.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“Being careful with my words and measuring my tone, speaking at all, is harder.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“As a kid I’d made the mistake of offering up overly complicated explanations, thinking that the more detailed I was, the more her doubt would ebb. Those explanations usually ended up revealing some kind of secret I wasn’t even aware I was keeping from her. Now I knew to say as little as possible.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“It had taken three different sleepovers at three different houses for me to realize that not all families worked this way.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“peace could only exist in this family when we lied about everything, at least to each other.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I feel the mechanics of his touch, of his hands on my skin, on my waist, on my breasts, all the things that are supposed to make me ache. Wet splotches smack against my neck, and I'm reminded of my first kiss with the first boy I ever made out with. Terrance Peters. I didn't feel much of anything then, either. I wonder if I can, if I ever will.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“To be able to stay in the group. thick skin was a must - being able to take an insult was respected just as much as being able to throw shade.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“You may go to their school but you cannot afford to act like them. You have to be better than this.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I didn't like being predictable; it felt too much like a weakness.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“To stay in the group, thick skin was a must — being able to take an insult was respected just as much as being able to throw shade.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“the loneliness that empty table made me feel was new and unexpected in a way that made it hard to breathe.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“We strong. There’s no need fi talk.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“she doesn’t know when to stop saying things, when she steamrolls over unspoken boundaries and the chattiness turns to shouting.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I don’t know where this sense of pressure is coming from, why I feel the weight of my mother’s gaze on my shoulders, but it makes me awkward as I speak to her.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“Kara heads for the door and feels Eloise’s eyes watching her, searching her body for an imperfection to catch and correct”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I didn’t know how I would even work a job I wasn’t supposed to have. I just liked the idea of money. My money. Of having something I could control.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I stood in the archway between the foyer and living room, watching the two of them in their parallel universes connected by malicious pride. I wondered about the effort this took. I wanted to know what happened at night.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“Maybe if I say it casually, like I expect her to be calm and not respond with homicidal rage. No, it won’t work. That nonchalance is too Canadian. Too much like the kids I go to school with. Too white”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“Quiet and distant, my grandfather was a challenge — and so naturally attracted the meddlesome interest of the flock.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“My mother closed her eyes the way she did whenever she regretted reconnecting with her parents”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“it seemed like he wanted to feel the house shrink in his presence”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“The action seemed sad. Everything he did seemed sad, all of his movements, all of his gestures. Even the way the corner of his lips drooped, pulling down his already-long face, cloaked his features in a melancholy I couldn’t pinpoint”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I knew nothing about him but he still felt lonely to me, like maybe he didn’t talk much because nobody ever asked him to”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“it looked to me that being in each other’s company only seemed to exhaust one and enrage the other”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I forced myself to swallow the bitter humiliation of being so predictable in my need for quiet.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“His easy confidence wasn’t for show and it burned me. I didn’t know how to be that relaxed; it came across as arrogant. But still, it had to be nice.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I didn’t like being predictable; it felt too much like a weakness.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I just wanted something to do with my hands, to hide my awkwardness with the simple motion of putting a cup to my lips”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“I knew what the right answer was. I knew what she wanted me to say and how she wanted me to say it — but I wasn’t able to say anything else, to show her that I knew what she expected of me”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain

“she knew how to inflate her presence, make herself bigger with the noise she created, the shouts she bellowed.”
― Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain