15 Quotes by Mark Oshiro

Oh, Moss," she said. "How little faith you have in others.""Do you blame me? I don't have much faith to go on these days, what with the world ending around us.""You know, sometimes it does feel like we're in one of those trendy dystopian novels," she admitted. "Except a lot less white.

It wasn't the first time Moss had heard the pop of a gunshot. Nor was it the first time he'd heard the sickening sound of air leaving someone's body. The sound meant the worst.

But we just wanted to go to school." Her voice broke again. "I'm sixteen. I shouldn't have to beg for that. But we just want to get to class without fearing for our lives.

It's like people want me to be this version of a person that isn't me. Like, always ready to fight and march and rally, and I don't even get to be myself.

Anger is a gift. Remember that." She stood. "You gotta grasp onto it, hold it tight and use it as ammunition. You use that anger to get things done instead of just stewing in it.

What should the Oakland Police Department do next?'Next? Moss thought. [...]'Stop killing us.'Then Moss walked away from it all.

It's an insidious thing," Wanda said. "It never happens overnight. This kind of thing crept into our community a long time ago. It latched on. It fed on prejudice. Selfishness. Peoples inability to see life through someone else's eyes. And it grew, bigger and bigger, until we got to a point where some people don't even question why a cop should be allowed to shoot first and ask questions later.

The sound of sunlight is the gentle scurrying of lizards and mice, desperate to find shade and comfort. It's the earth, groaning and creaking as it wakes up, as the moisture within it is pulled away, cracking and breaking the soil. It is the scratching echo of our feet pressing.

I’m sorry I never understood … until now,” she said, and that got Moss to turn his head slightly, and he looked straight at her, saw the rawness and terror in her eyes, and he inclined his head. It was his way of saying: Now you know. He watched her gasp for breath, watched her lean her head back, desperate for air, watched her cry openly. This was what it took. This was the line she had to cross. He didn’t know if it was enough.