Some people call the sunset a creation of extraordinary beauty, and proof of God’s existence. But what benevolent force would bewitch the human spirit by choosing pink to light the path of a slave vessel? Do not be fooled by that pretty colour, and do not submit to its beckoning.

The misfortune of those women was my good luck, their misery my escape.

I wouldn’t wish beauty on any woman who has not her own freedom, and who chooses not the hands that claim her.

Mama is beautiful,” I said. “Mama is strong,” he said. “Beauty comes and goes. Strength, you keep forever.” “What about the old people?” “They are the strongest of all, for they have lived longer than all of us, and they have wisdom,” he said, tapping his temple.

Every voter knew that the Family Party had come to power promising to deport Illegals, to manage its borders more efficiently and to ensure that people of traditional European stock weren’t overrun in their own country.

Every time I had seen men rise up, they had not prevailed and innocent people had died. Daddy.

It doesn’t matter what we call your soul, Daddy Moses said, smiling at me. What matters is where it travels and who it uplifts.

I stood up to take some air outside. The stars were brilliant that night, and the cicadas were crying in endless song. If the sky was so perfect, why was the earth all wrong?

Englishmen do love to bury one thing so completely in another that the two can only be separated by force: peanuts in candy, indigo in glass, Africans in irons. Standing.

Never have I met a person doing terrible things who would meet my own eyes peacefully. To gaze into another person’s face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity, and to assert your own.