ON BECOMING
inspiration, jess, joyce carol oates, photography, quote, words
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All had suffered crushing misfortunes and had not been crushed. They had not been broken by the crash of empires, the machetes of revolting slaves, war, rebellion, proscription, confiscation. Malign fate had broken their necks, perhaps, but never their hearts. They had not whined, they had fought. And when they died, they died spent but unquenched. All of those shadowy folks whose blood flowed in her veins seemed to move quietly in the moonlit room.
People were the worst of gods and the worst of animals combined. Perhaps this kind of violence was the only message they would ever really understand. Something so terrible they would never want to see it happen again. Maybe they would be less warlike now, because they had finally become frightened of themselves. It would be so human of them, wouldn’t it? To be thrust into goodness by something vast and evil.
— Michael Poore, Up Jumps the Devil
“I never liked you much till now, Scarlett. You were always hard as a hickory nut, even as a child, and I don’t like hard females, barring myself. But I do like the way you meet things. You don’t make a fuss about things that can’t be helped, even if they are disagreeable. You take your fences cleanly like a good hunter.”
'You know what? Forget what I just said. You’re already a part of this. You will eat, you will laugh at stupid things, you will stay up all night just to see what it feels like, you will fall painfully in love, you will have babies of your own, you will doubt and regret and yearn and keep a secret. You will get old and decrepit, and you will die, exhausted from all that living. That is when you get to die. Not now.'
— Miranda July, The First Bad Man