“It had been easy to be comfortable with each other when there was a glass wall between them.” — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
“It seemed to him that he could never get a proper grip on any of the beauty in this world.” — Ayana Mathis Beauty Copy Share Image
Half of what's wrong with people today is that they ain't got no place to go that makes them peaceful. — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
“I couldn't stand to be a fool a second time,' Hattie said. 'I couldn't stand it.” — Ayana Mathis Shame Copy Share Image
“I wonder if the brass understands that people are getting killed.” — Ayana Mathis Brass Copy Share Image
“God had indeed set it twirling and twisting every which way when he put black people to owning their own kind.” — Ayana Mathis Black people Copy Share Image
“You ought to go now before she wakes up,” Hattie said. She handed her daughter to Pearl. I’m in the floor, she… — Ayana Mathis Children Copy Share Image
“It was important to do what needed doing, no matter the day or the circumstance.” — Ayana Mathis Circumstance Copy Share Image
“But she was gone, and Hattie wanted to give her babies names that weren’t already chiseled on a headstone in the family… — Ayana Mathis Family Copy Share Image
“I go above deck to watch the sky darken into twilight. It helps me remember that this strange place is still the… — Ayana Mathis Nature Copy Share Image
“Hattie had never been easy to love. She was too quiet, it was impossible to know what she was thinking. And she… — Ayana Mathis Angry Copy Share Image
“In Georgia, there was a eucalyptus tree in the wood across from Hattie's house, but the plant had been hard to come… — Ayana Mathis Georgia Copy Share Image
“I have looked at my father many times and wondered how he could stand knowing he was my mother’s ruin. He was… — Ayana Mathis Father Copy Share Image
“Six wasn't sure religion was any more than a lot of people caught up in a collective delirium that disappeared the minute… — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
I've been writing all my life. Even though I didn't have sort of careerist aspirations as a writer, it was very much… — Ayana Mathis Aspiration Copy Share Image
“Some things you can’t apologize for, you just have to try to get around them,” Hattie replied. “For your own sake too,… — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
You have to find a way of shutting the future out and focusing on the writing. One of the problems I'll have… — Ayana Mathis Book Copy Share Image
“Bell had been disdainful of them; she’d thought them small and ordinary. She’d taken such pleasure in saying no to their proposals… — Ayana Mathis Breaking hearts Copy Share Image
I think that the project of being alive is to be alive. So there will always be twists and turns and steps… — Ayana Mathis Alive Copy Share Image
I like to say I had a very varied undergraduate education. I was an English major first, and then at the end… — Ayana Mathis College Copy Share Image
“The thing to do was to insult her or slap her or run her out into the night. She’d left him with… — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
“All of them -- Hattie and Willie and Evelyn and even ruined, crazy Walter -- were little lights; sparks flying upward in… — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
The ways in which theological constructs pose questions about what it is to be a human being on this earth are deeply… — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
I think of my success as a kind of fluke. How else could I possibly think of it? And although it's a… — Ayana Mathis Amazing things Copy Share Image
A belief in God may not be fully within me anymore, but there's still a belief in belief. The high drama and… — Ayana Mathis Belief Copy Share Image
“Sala, waking up to the sun and finding her mother groomed, could try to forget the night before. There were many things… — Ayana Mathis Mother Copy Share Image
By sixteen I thought, "Ah, this is all crap, you're all sheep, I'm not going to church, leave me alone." And then… — Ayana Mathis Candle Copy Share Image
In America, and no doubt elsewhere, we have such a tendency toward the segregation of cultural products. This is a black book,… — Ayana Mathis Barriers Copy Share Image
There is still an assumption among many people that to be black is to be lower class. In the last fifteen to… — Ayana Mathis Assumption Copy Share Image
I think that if you just write your characters you end up with something that people can access. — Ayana Mathis Access Copy Share Image
“Hattie was like a lake of smooth, silvered ice, under which nothing could be seen or known.” — Ayana Mathis Lake Copy Share Image
“She wished the man outside really were Thomas, so she and Billups could again have the same enemy and the same fear.O” — Ayana Mathis Heart Copy Share Image
The correlations between real life experience and the storylines in novels are never as direct or simple as they might seem. — Ayana Mathis Books Copy Share Image
“The Lord brings us into this world naked, but I don’t suppose he means us to stay that way” — Ayana Mathis God Copy Share Image
“God doesn't come to sit on the porch and sip lemonade. He comes to take over.” — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
“One of these days you gon’ have to turn around and look at whatever it is you running from.” — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
The critics and the reviewers are more frightening than anything else! — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
“His pain was his most precious and secret possession, and Six held on to it as fiercely as a jewel robbed from… — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
I try to find the beauty in things. On dark days, I sit in my armchair looking at clouds and I am… — Ayana Mathis Copy Share Image
