“You know how we’re thinking about food these days, less in terms of carbs and calories than in terms of color, vivacity, and life force? We can do the same with time. Then it’s no longer about having enough of it but about infusing color and vivacity and life force into every moment. (279)”

“…“white supremacy” is a much more useful term for understanding the complicity of people of color in upholding and maintaining racial hierarchies that do not involve force (i.e slavery, apartheid) than the term “internalized racism”- a term most often used to suggest that black people have absorbed negative feelings and attitudes about blackness. The term “white supremacy” enables us to recognize not only that black people are socialized to embody the values and attitudes of white supremacy, but we can exercise “white supremacist control” over other black people.”

“You didn’t get a choice in what happened to you. Neither didwe. But you have a choice in what happens now. We don’t. You’re the one in control and all we can do is sit on the sidelines and watch, even if youkeep making the wrong calls over and over again.” We’re obviously veering into sports metaphor territory. “We’re not going to force you to doanything you aren’t ready to do. You’ve had enough forced on you. But you have to make a decision about how long you’re going to let this defineyour life.”

“Because, as we all know, it’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And it’s also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that we’re not so sure about.”

“When a word ceases to be a term of description and becomes merely a term of praise, it no longer tells you about the object: it only tells you about the speakers attitude to that object.”

“To find someone suddenly gone, to see them one day and not know that this will be the last day you see them, to not have the moment register until hours, days later, or years is never easy. How we catch ourselves as life moves forward, thinking about that last moment and about what we might have done differently, if only we'd known.”