The Monsters We Defy Quotes

“It seemed to Clara that the boys in these situations were just as fast, but she’d never heard her grandmother slander them.”
― Leslye Penelope, The Monsters We Defy

“If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! —Claude McKay”
― Leslye Penelope, The Monsters We Defy

“if you want somebody else to buy what you’re selling them, you gotta believe it too. You can’t show any doubts or the audience will feel it. Deep in their bones. You show fear or waver in any way, then that’s what they focus on.”
― Leslye Penelope, The Monsters We Defy

“She looked me in the eye and wrote her own story then went out and lived it. The way I figure, if you want somebody else to buy what you're selling them you gotta believe it too. You can't show any doubts or the audience will feel it deep in their bones. You show fear or waver in any way, then that's what they focus on. You believe your own story, that you're the greatest coin illusionist that ever lived," she shrugged and grabbed her teacup again, "you make them all believe what you want them to.”
― Leslye Penelope, The Monsters We Defy

“Professor Hansberry taught us about a concept they have in Africa—in Swahili it’s called utu. In Zulu, the word is ubuntu. It translates to ‘humanity,’ but what it really means is ‘community.’ I am because we are. Our humanity is tied together.”
― Leslye Penelope, The Monsters We Defy

“In some other life, if she wasn’t who she was, could she have been one of the Saturday Nighters? Could she even have penned a poem or two or perhaps a short story? Shared it with an eager audience? And if it could happen in another life, what was stopping it from happening in this one? Maybe the biggest thing holding her back now was the limits of her own imagination. Maybe the problem was her.”
― Leslye Penelope, The Monsters We Defy