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21 " WE ALL THREE sat at the kitchen table in our raincoats, and Joel smashed tomatoes with a small rubber mallet. We had seen it on TV: a man with an untamed mustache and a mallet slaughtering vegetables, and people in clear plastic ponchos soaking up the mess, having the time of their lives. "
― Justin Torres , We the Animals
22 " We hit and we kept on hitting; we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful—little animals, clawing at what we needed. "
23 " And me now. Look at me. See me there with them, in the snow - both inside and outside their understanding. See how I made them uneasy. They smelled my difference - my sharp, sad, pansy scent. They believed I would know a world larger than their own. They hated me for my good grades, for my white ways. All at once they were disgusted, and jealous, and deeply protective, and deeply proud. "
24 " ...telling me how he had dreamt of kites-a whole sky full of kites, and he was holding all the strings. He told me how the good kites and wicked kites got all mixed up, how he tried to hold on to the good and let the rest float away, but after a while he couldn't tell them apart. "
25 " Why won't you look at me, my brothers, why won't you take my eyes "
26 " Everybody's got rights. A man tied to a bed got rights. A man down in a dungeon got rights. A little screaming baby got rights. Yeah, you got rights. What you don't got is power. "
27 " I turned new eyes to them, a newly caustic gaze. I sensed a keen power of observation in myself, an intelligence, but sour. "
28 " […] they were looking at memories, proud memories, blood memories, or else they were dreaming about their wild futures. "