Quotes from Tayari Jones

I was aware that she didn't belong to me. I didn't mean that, on paper at least, she was another's man's wife. If you knew her, you would know that she never belonged to him either. I'm not sure if she even realized it herself, but she's the kind of woman that will never belong to anyone.

Love is a maze. Once you get in it, you're pretty much trapped. Maybe you manage to claw your way out, but then what have you accomplished?

She explained that convenience, habit, comfort, obligation—these are all things that wear the same clothing as love sometimes.

People say, that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn't kill you, doesn't kill you. That's all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that's enough.

I try and calm myself, remember that I've lived alone before. Sleeping by myself didn't kill me then and will not kill me now. But this is what loss has taught me of love. Our house isn't simply empty, our home has been emptied.

Don't flip the script on semantics," Celestial said.

Much of life is time and circumstance, I see that now. Roy came into my life at the time when I needed a man like him. Would I have galloped into this love affair if I had never left Atlanta? I don't know. But how I feel love and understand love are two different things.

I believed that our marriage was a fine-spun tapestry, fragile but fixable. We tore it often and mended it, always with a silken thread, lovely but sure to give way.

The last in the series are six or seven of his own stricken face, his arms extended to hold the camera.

Olive brought me into this world and trained me up to be the man I recognized as myself. But Celestial was the portal to the rest of my life, the shiny door to the next level.

home isn't where you land; home is where you launch. You can't pick your home any more than you can pick your family. In poker, you get five cards. Two are yours to keep: family and native land.

Read this letter three times before you tell me what you think. I am also including a prayer card, and it would do you some good to pray on this every night. Get on your knees when you talk to the Lord. Do not call yourself praying by lying in the bed thinking. Thinking and praying are two different things, and for something this important, you need prayer.

You love me. You know you do." I wouldn't have answered even if he hadn't cut off my breath with a kiss that tasted like desire streaked through with anger.

It was just the wrong race and the wrong time. Police are shady as hell. That's why everybody is locked up.

Before, I had my good job and my gold cuff links. What do I have today? Only my character. I know she can't wear my character on her left hand, and I know it doesn't pay bills or father children. But it's what I have and I believe that it should count for something. Thank you, sir, for reading this.

didn't want her to stand up for what was right, I wanted my mother to stand up for me.

What's for you is for you. Extend your hand and claim your blessing.

Then, I didn't know that our bodies can know things before they happen, so when my eyes suddenly filled with tears, I thought this was the unpredictable effect of emotion.

the smile bent into a smirk. "Tell me, do I look like someone who can't pay my bills?

I hope you will not interpret this as rejection, because that is not my intention. You are a part of our family and every one of us holds you in highest regard.

Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it's gone, nothing is whole again.

But for true, only a woman can truly welcome a man back home, wash his feet, and fix his plate.

You're always welcome in my home," he had said. And so I decided to take him at his word.

I don't believe that blood makes a family; kin is the circle you create, hands held tight. There is something to shared genetics, but the question is, what exactly is that something? It matters that I didn't grow up with my father. It's kind of like having one leg that's half inch shorter than the other. You can walk, but there will be a dip.