Memphis Quotes

“Miriam thought her the most entitled white women she had met—uninteresting, her life so intertwined with that of her husband’s that she was no longer distinguishable as a woman.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“Men and death. Men and death. How on earth y'all run the world when all y'all have ever done is kill each other?”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“History had awakened me to the fact that racism is the only food Americans crave.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“For years in this country there was no one for black men to vent their rage on except black women. And for years black women accepted that rage—even regarded that acceptance as their unpleasant duty. But in doing so, they frequently kicked back, and they seem never to have become the “true slave” that white women see in their own history. True, the black woman did the housework, the drudgery; true, she reared the children, often alone, but she did all of that while occupying a place on the job market, a place her mate could not get or which his pride would not let him accept. And she had nothing to fall back on: not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may very well have invented herself. —Toni Morrison, “What the Black Woman Thinks About Women’s Lib,” The New York Times, 1971”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“walls shook with the laughter. Laughter that was, in and of itself, Black. Laughter that could break glass. Laughter that could uplift a family. A cacophony of Black female joy in a language private to them.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“It's a sight, ain't it? And after all these years, I can't get used to it. Mountains. How did they even come to be? Sometimes I sit in that shop all day wondering. Don't make no sense to me how a fella can question the existence of God waking up to mountains like that every morning. All the proof I need.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“The things women do for the sake of their daughters. The things women don’t. The shame of it all. The shame of her daughter’s rape, the shame of her husband’s violence, her nephew’s psychopathy.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“I didn’t want that, either—poverty and the shame it brings—but I was willing to risk being chronically poor the rest of my life so that I could draw. Art mattered more to me than anything else. If there was a chance I could make it work, that I might make a living off it, however meager, I had to try.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“Then almost raised her hand to her left brow, still tender, covered in cheap Maybelline foundation not her shade because no drugstore ever carried her shade.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“I had gotten the revenge I had waited my entire life for, and yet, I was disgusted with myself. Had I done this? Created this evil? Lord only knew. And I prayed he would forgive me. Because no matter what Derek had done to me, to others, to Memphis, that nigga's trauma could never heal mine.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“To Miss Gianna Floyd -
I wrote you a black fairytale
I understand if you not ready
to read it yet or if your mama
told you wait a bit and that
just fine this book aint going
nowhere this book gon be right here
whoever you want it
whenever you get finished playing
outside in that bright beautiful world
your daddy loved so much child,
it's just right to set this aside
Lord knows not a soul on this earth
gon blame you for being out in it --
running laughing breathing”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“She qualified but had refused to go on food stamps. Pride. She almost laughed out loud now. Counting Wolf, her household had grown by three humans and one canine in a single morning.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“The butterflies are what solidified my fascination. Small and periwinkle-blue, they danced within the canopy. The butterflies were African violets come alive. It was the finishing touch to a Southern symphony all conducted on a quarter-acre plot.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“If Memphis were alive”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“You have done me, my kin, and the city of Memphis a great honor by publishing these words. So I thank you. With everything that’s in me, I thank you.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“I have no idea how or why. But I’m Catholic. So, I reckon a large part of me believes wholeheartedly in miracles, and thus, in angels.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“I will say it again: Every human being on this earth needs a sibling like a sailor needs a compass. How y’all have been my North Stars. How I’d wander without y’all.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“And wasn’t it you who always made sure, no matter how poor we were, no matter how meager the meal on the table, that I always had a fresh writing journal? What a mother you are. What a woman you are.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“Yes, you said. But poets can tell stories, too. You remember me asking, demanding you start over, repeat what you had just read? And you did. In a clear, ringing voice. Once upon a midnight dreary…So thank you, Pops.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“As I drove, the demands of my art class dwindled away. I lost track of time. I began to fall in love with driving, with the power it gave me.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“I’ll drive the damn Shelby myself if I have to, but my daughter”—Miriam, still on the floor, rubbed her eight-month-swollen belly affectionately—“will be born in Memphis.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“It was as if she held a broken teacup in her hands but couldn’t remember breaking it and had no idea how to mend it.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“Never knew it could be the sun itself, stretching on and on, warming us all.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“I had to come here. Had to see you. I was sick of all the death, don’t you see? Everywhere I go, there’s a war.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“The anger I had felt for years at my father was what I had had instead of him. It was all I had of him. So, I carried it with me always, like a rose quartz in my palm. And it was slowly disappearing, my quartz. Growing tiny. I was hardly feeling the rough edges of it anymore. I realized, as time passed in the kitchen, the grandfather clock in the parlor having sung its swan song three times now, that love was wearing me down. Love, like a tide, just washing over and over that piece of”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“In that long moment, I truly believed that my parents, in some past time, would have crossed the Sahara for each other. Arms outstretched, seeking each other out before water.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“History had awakened me to the fact that racism is the only food Americans crave. Mornings in class with Mr. Harrison had taught me that Americans had reduced the world’s most elite soldiers to a single word: Jap. I had grown up hearing my father’s Marine friends, even Uncle Mazz, use Haji. I wasn’t having any of it in this house. I was prepared to deal with the fallout, the blowback of sassing an elder and kin, but—To hell with it, I thought. I wasn’t having any of that low ignorance up in my house. Especially not from him.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“She had the same doe eyes, the same shade of brown skin; she even bit her lip the same way when she was deep in concentration. She was beginning to grow hips that she expected would eventually turn into the curved vase of her mother’s figure.”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“Men and death. Men and death. How on earth y’all run the world when all y’all have ever done is kill each other?”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis

“Killing my son won’t bring back nobody from the dead. You know this. And y’all going to kill him? That’s the question we came down here for today? How? How, after this, how y’all going to sleep at night?” She turned now to the room at large, her arms outstretched, challenging,”
― Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis