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21 " Babies are such blank slates. They don’t come into this world with the assumptions their parents have made, or the promises their church will give, or the ability to sort people into groups they like and don’t like. They don’t come into this world with anything, really, except a need for comfort. And they will take it from anyone, without judging the giver. I wonder how long it takes before the polish given by nature gets worn off by nurture. "
― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things
22 " one day, you turn around, and your baby is a man. One day, you look in the mirror, and see gray hair. One day, you realize there is less of your life left than what you’ve already lived. "
23 " the reason we lose people we care about is so we’re more grateful for the ones we still have. "
24 " Just because something is different does not mean it should not be respected. "
25 " The truth has teeth. "
26 " I feel like I've been standing underneath an open window, just as a baby gets tossed out. I grab the baby, right, because who wouldn't? But then another baby gets tossed out, so I pass the baby to someone else, and I make the catch. This keeps happening. And before you know it there are a whole bunch of people who are getting really good at passing along babies, just like I'm good at catching them, but no one ever asks who the fuck is throwing the babies out the window in the first place. "
27 " No matter who else is mourning, you’re in your own little cell. Even when people try to comfort you, you’re aware that now there is a barrier between you and them, made of the horrible thing that happened, that keeps you isolated. "
28 " A mother has nine months to get used to sharing the space where her heart is; for a father it comes on sudden, like a storm that changes the landscape forever. "
29 " Corinne is one of those people for whom life is just the space between crises. "
30 " I tell them that there is nothing more selfish than trying to change someone's mind because they don't think like you. Just because something is different does not mean it should not be respected. "
31 " The whole point of this examination is to make me feel lesser than... but I have spent 20 years seeing how beautiful women are. Not because of how they look, but because of what their bodies can withstand. "
32 " the part of the brain, physiologically, that allows us to blame everything on people we do not really know is the same part of the brain that allows us to have compassion for strangers "
33 " On the day before classes were supposed to start, Mama took me out to dinner. “You’re destined to do small great things,” she told me. “Just like Dr. King said.” She was referring to one of her favorite quotes: If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way. "
34 " She falters, then gather up the weeds of her thoughts and offers me the saddest, truest bouquet. "
35 " I smile. But like anything you wear that doesn't fit, it pinches. "
36 " On one side of the seesaw is my education. My nursing certification. My twenty years of service at the hospital. My neat little home. My spotless RAV4. My National Honor Society-inductee son. All of these building blocks of my existence, and yet the only quality straddling the other side is so hulking and dense that it tips the balance every time: my brown skin. "
37 " How incredibly easy it is to hide behind white skin, I think, looking at these probable supremacists. The benefit of the doubt is in your favor. You're not suspicious. The few black faces in the room stand out in harsh counterpoint. "
38 " Is it better not knowing the ugly truth, and pretending it doesn't exist? Or is it better to confront it, even though the knowledge may be a weight you carry around forever? "
39 " There is a fire raging, and we have two choices: we can turn our backs, or we can try to fight it. Yes, talking about racism is hard to do, and yes, we stumble over the words - but we who are white need to have this discussion among ourselves. Because then, even more of us will overhear, and - I hope - the conversation will spread. "
40 " It is amazing how you can look in a mirror your whole life and think you are seeing yourself clearly. And then one day, you peel off a filmy gray layer of hypocrisy, and you realize you’ve never truly seen yourself at all. I "