Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do Quotes

“Buying flowers is not just a way to bring home beauty. It's an expression of confidence that better days are coming. It's a defiant finger in the face of those naysayers who would have you believe your fortunes will never improve.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“Because a lie can never make you stronger, no matter how many times you tell it.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“We weren’t looking for perfection. We were looking for the possibility of perfection, and that possibility is always most beautifully present in the faces of our children and then, if we are very lucky, in the faces of our grandchildren.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“You can only get your heart broke so many times before you forget how to offer it up at all.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“You know what’s funny about black women?” Blue asked gently. “What’s that?” “They’re the only women in the world that you have to talk into letting you protect them.” “Maybe we’ve just forgotten how.” “Exactly,” he said. “And that’s why I’m here.” “Why?” “To help you remember.” The idea of protection is so central to everything that goes on between men and women, even when we don’t admit it. Probably especially when we don’t admit it. Blue’s decision to take matters into his own hands and create a safe environment for people to live their normal, ordinary, everyday lives seemed so extraordinary in the face of the chaos we routinely accept as a community that I didn’t quite know what to say. His unequivocal acceptance of the traditional male role appealed to me on a truly visceral level, but did that mean I had to become a more traditional female to balance things out? My mind was already on overload, but I thought I understood something I hadn’t before. Something personal. “Is that why you stopped singing?” He smiled. “I didn’t stop singing. I stopped recording.” The distinction was, I’m sure, crucial to a singer the same way a writer will always separate the act of writing from the choice to publish. “Is that why you stopped recording?” “That’s part of it.” “What’s the other part?” “The other part is a conversation for another day,” he said, standing up and buttoning his coat. “I’ve taken up enough of your time.” “No problem,” I said, walking him to the door. “But what did you come over here to tell me?” “Whatever you wanted to know,” he said, turning to face me. The truth sounds funny sometimes when you just say it right out. “I see.” “So how’d I do?” I opened the door and looked right into his eyes. “So far, so good.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“What she was saying reminded me of the scene in Gone With the Wind, where the town’s most successful madam is trying to make a contribution to the war effort, and the proper slave-owning Confederate ladies refuse it on the grounds that her money is tainted. That always cracks me up. She earns her money with sex, and they earn their money breeding people, and her money’s no good.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“Well, I’m working on a project now with some women who are working as strippers.” I liked the way she said that: “women who are working as strippers.” Not “strippers.” She made stripping what they did for a living, not who they were.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“The problem I’ve had all my dating life is that the guys who drive me crazy sexually never seem to care much about being a part of the righteous forward motion of all peoples of the world toward peace and freedom. This is part of my parents’ revolutionary curse. I have to consider politics even in the midst of passion.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“What good is trying to reform if you have to spend the rest of your life paying for the stupid things you did when you still got high and didn’t give a damn?”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“How many terrible moments for women begin with the words “so I opened the door”?”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“Before reading any story purporting to be news, I ask myself one question: Is this story a personal tragedy or a community challenge?”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“My mother always said a steady diet of scary bad news was just a right-wing plot to make people afraid to trust one another, and I used to laugh, but I think maybe she was right.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“Music is music, but in a revolution, land and resources are supposed to change hands.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

“She traveled a lot, got married a lot, divorced a lot, and always carried the scent of patchouli in the multiethnic clothing she invariably wore.”
― Pearl Cleage, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do