#erica

In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it’s the worst kind of hell for those who love you. ↗

— Billie Holiday

#america #love

Next time!" In what calendar are kept the records of those next times which never come? ↗

— Helen Hunt Jackson

#calendar #california #female-author #future #helen-hunt-jackson

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. ↗

— Zora Neale Hurston

#women #love

I remembered suddenly that Aspen had always been this way. He sacrificed sleep for me, he risked getting caught out after curfew for me, he scrounged together pennies for me. Aspen's generosity was harder to see because it wasn't as grand as Maxon's, but the heart behind what he gave was so much bigger. ↗

— Kiera Cass

#aspen #love #sacrifice #love

Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#hemingway #literature

Broke is a relative term, like sister, cousin, or Uncle Sam.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#america #broke #broken #cousin #debt

You know Americans...Self-improvement. No matter who or what we are, we're always working on ways to become somebody else. ↗

— Alan Brown

#americans #audrey-hepburn #improvement #japan #japanese

My Japanese isn’t much better today, but at least now I appreciate my duality more than when I was a punk kid. ↗

— Gil Asakawa

#japan #japanese-american #language #japan

You know what the issue is? Do you want to know? It's what these guys have decided to call America. They have the audacity to say, 'There, you sons of bitches, don't lay a finger on it. That is a finished product.'" "But any country is still in the making. Always. That's just history, people have to see that. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#diversity #kingsolver #lacuna #diversity

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election. ↗

— Bill Vaughan

#citizen #cross #democracy #election #fight