21 Quotes by Saeed Jones

A woman raises a boy into a man, loving him so intensely that her commitment finally repulses him.

I made myself a promise: Even if it meant becoming a stranger to my loved ones, even if it meant keeping secrets, I would have a life of my own.

History hurt more than any weapon inflicted on us. It hit back harder than any weapon we could wield, any weapon we could turn ourselves into.

I believed that I could control any story I told. If something happened, I could write about it, own it, resolve it. Simple. You could afford to be interesting, if you could pin everything to the page afterward.

Just as some cultures have a hundred words for 'snow,' there should be a hundred words in our language for all the ways a black boy can lie awake at night.

A joke I used to repeat in those days was: Why be happy when you can be interesting? I knew how to be interesting. There was power in being a spectacle, even a miserable spectacle. The punch and the line. Interesting: sentences like serrated blades, laughter like machine-gun rounds, a drink in one hand, a borrowed cigarette in the other. If you could draw enough glances, any room could orbit around you.

We’re not crazy. We’re just not in the dark anymore. And my goodness, we can see you so clearly now.

Everyone has a lie we’re quietly waiting to believe.

I slipped on the forcefully carefree posture of the other boys around me. The existential shrug of young men afraid to admit that they’ve been touched by art, and that they want to be touched in that way again.