134 Quotes by Kevin Young

Deep SongBelief is what buries us—that& the belief in belief—No longerdo I trust liltlessness—leewardis the world'sway—Go onplunge in—the lungs willlet us float.Joy is the mile-high ledgethe leap—a breathabove the lip of the abandonedquarry—beliefthe dark the deep.

To lose someone close to you is to enter an experience no amount of forethought or hindsight can free you from. You must live through grief. You cannot outsmart it, nor think through the fact of someone's being gone, and forever. You must survive the sorrow.

Do not believe angels are easy. Instead, terrible, terrific in the oldest sense--the ground giving way beneath your feet.

A finger is a gun-- a wallet is a gun, skin a shiny pistol,a demon, a barrelalready ready--hands updon't shoot--

Sixth grade you didn't survive just endured.

I was ten when Mike Smiley, half-Indian, skinny, brown-skinned, brought the word jigaboo to schoollike lunch, or the flu,fed him by his adopted white father who saidthat's what we calledthem then. By noon it was done--everyone had a name for what had beenbothering them, some thing utterly humanas hate.

We are not born with tears. Your first dozen cries are dry. It takes some time for the world to arrive and salt the eyes.

We were never young.

a calm that would undo most anyone who thought noise worse than its opposite