Quotes from Tayari Jones

If my childhood were a sandwich, there would be no meat hanging off the bread.

A marriage is more than your heart, it's your life.

Every one of us has lain down for a reason that was not love.

My prayer for you is for peace, which is something you have to make. You can't just have it.

It takes being together to another level when you go to bed for a purpose larger than your own feelings.

This, I now know, is how people go crazy and do things they regret. Look at the woman who almost killed Al Green.I am sure she cooked those grits, fully intending to eat them for breakfast. Then he did something that set her off. After that, she probably picked up the pot, just to scare him a little bit. Next thing she knew and the boiling grits were all over his face. There was a name for that kind of thing. "Crime of passion." It meant that it wasn't your fault.

You also have to work with the love you are given, with all of the complications clanging behind it like tin cans tied to a bridal sedan.

Life is full of things you never figured on.

A woman doesn't always have a choice, not in a meaningful way. Sometimes there is a debt that must be paid, a comfort that she is obliged to provide, a safe passage that must be secured. Every one of us has lain down for a reason that was not love.

Dwelling on pain, spending too much time immersed in it, tasting its flavors, fingering its textures--this makes it only more potent.

Up until now, I thought I knew what was and wasn't possible. Maybe that's what innocence is, having no way to predict the pain of the future. When something happens that eclipses the imaginable, it changes a person. It's like the difference between a raw egg and a scrambled egg. It's the same thing, but it's not the same at all. That's the best way I can put it. I look in the mirror and I know it's me, but I can't quite recognize myself.

You say you want my advice. Here's what I have. Tell the truth. Don't try to cushion the blow. If you're bad enough to do it, you're bad enough to tell it.

She swiveled and we kissed like teenagers, making out under the bridge. It was a wonderful feeling to be grown and yet young. To be married but not settled. To be tied down yet free.

I kissed her every way I could think of. I kissed her forehead like she was my daughter. I kissed her quivering eyelids like she was my dead mother. I kissed her hard on her cheeks like you do before you kill someone. I kissed her collarbone the way you do when you want more. I pulled her earlobe with my teeth the way you do when you know what someone likes. I did everything, and she sat as pliable as a doll.

how you feel love and understand love are two different things. Now, so many years down the road, I recognize that I was alone and adrift and that he was lonely in the way that only a ladies' man can be. He reminded me of Atlanta, and I reminded him of the same. All these were reasons why we were drawn to each other, but standing with him outside of Maroons, we were past reason. Human emotion is beyond comprehension, smooth and uninterrupted, like an orb made of blown glass.

All Olive wanted was to see this day. That was all she ever asked for and she's not here to experience it. You're home and we're sitting here eating other women's food. I know the Lord has a plan, but this isn't right.

It's funny how you think you can know a person

She and I have a connection. Today, the link is rusty, the current erratic, but there will always be something between us.

More women should be selfish," she said. "Or else the world will trample you.

I didn't want a fresh start, but maybe a little breathing room would be nice.

How did we end up here? My key works, but you won't let me in.

Forgive me for being such a straight shooter. Nowadays they say it's being direct, but your mama called it being an asshole.

I feel like I need and need and need and it's wearing a hole in the fabric.

I know you're innocent, there is not one doubt in my mind, but I also know that you're not here.