When the Reckoning Comes Quotes

“How long, did you think, after all of this, it would be before their souls finally came for you in the night?”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“You’re a good girl. You’re so good, you’ve let the desire to be it overtake you. It’s defined who you are.
…. You’ve always believed being this way was going to somehow save your life, but it’s stolen it instead. Let me ask, what did being good ever do for you?”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“Alone she had to face the reality of what she saw and her own participation in it, because watching was participating, wasn’t it? Allowing it to continue?”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“They’d never yessir and mistah their way to freedom.”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“North Carolina weather could be unpredictable, especially this near the coast.”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“If you look hard enough at any one of our stories you’ll find some tragedy lurking.”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“What if we clamored and yelled, fought in every way we could? And what if we weren't alone? What if it was all of us together rising? Can you imagine it? Can you imagine what we could do?”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes: A Novel

“Hush though, and listen. If you’re quiet, you can hear their whispers in the water calling to those left behind. Hush and you can hear them lurking, waiting for the day they can make their return.”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“To believe, one must care, and who’s to say anyone ever cared?”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“What are you?” the boy had asked and not, “What are you supposed to be? The ambiguity in the question unnerved her. Had he been referring to what she looked like? Throughout her life she’d been asked that many times, within the question the expectation that of course she was something else besides black.”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“She’d thought the choice was his, not realizing that with her lie she’d been the one to make the decision, and it became clear there was no way to take any of it back.”
― LaTanya McQueen, When the Reckoning Comes

“They were all beautiful, Mira told her, they were all already perfect, but for Celine it was about more than the dress. The wedding was a chance for her to be seen as someone worthy, as beautiful, as deserving of the attention spent.”
― LaTanya McQueen , When the Reckoning Comes