“You who live safeIn your warm houses, You who find warm foodAnd friendly faces when you return home. Consider if this is a manWho works in mud, Who knows no peace, Who fights for a crust of bread, Who dies by a yes or no.Consider if this is a womanWithout hair, without name,Without the strength to remember,Empty are her eyes, cold her womb,Like a frog in winter. Never forget that this has happened.Remember these words.Engrave them in your hearts, When at home or in the street, When lying down, when getting up. Repeat them to your children.Or may your houses be destroyed, May illness strike you down, May your offspring turn their faces from you.”
“Everybody has a home team: It’s the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyways. These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without asking when they’re at your house. These are the people who cry when you cry. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people.”
“There are still some wonderful people left in this world! They are diamonds in the rough, but they're around! You'll find them when you fall down– they're the ones who pick you up, who don't judge, and you had to fall down to see them! When you get up again, remember who your true friends are!”
“Love attacks. It sneaks up like a pride of lions or a pack of hyenas and eats your heart out while you watch. Love is the bully on the playground who takes your lunch money and gives you a black eye in return, the arsonist who burns your house down with you in it, the witch who lures you into her home with candy and boils you alive for dinner. Love is raw, and violent, and instantaneous. You don’t fall in love; you get trampled by it.”
“When you find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will stand in front of you when other’s cast stones, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who will hold your hand when your sick, who thinks your pretty without makeup, the one who turns to his friends and say, ‘that’s her’, the one that would bear your rejection because losing you means losing his will to live, who kisses you when you screw up, watches the stars and names one for you and will hold and rock that baby for hours so you can sleep…..you marry him all over again.”
“When you find a chillness upon your souls, and that your former heat begins to abate, ply yourselves with warm clothes, get those good books that may acquaint you with such truths as may warm and affect your hearts.”