“It is not down on any map; true places never are.” Herman Melville, ‘Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale’

“The first time I heard two women, a Puerto Rican and a Cuban, say the word ‘nosotras,’ I was shocked. I had not known the word existed.” – Gloria Anzaldúa, “How To Tame A Wild Tongue”

“She’d been utterly lost in the mist before, but she did not bother to consider what she’d do if she should lose her way again.” – Silvia Moreno-Garcia, ‘Mexican Gothic’

“She sat there, at the statue’s feet, and tugged at a blade of grass wondering if someone ever bothered setting flowers inside the mausoleum…” – Silvia Moreno-Garcia, ‘Mexican Gothic’

“we’ll wrap our arms, / my brother and me, // and become / in the surf rising” – Ross Gay, ‘Be Holding’

“Vogon poetry is of course, the third worst in the universe.” – ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’

“Every day I think about where I came from and I am still proud to be who I am…” – Zinedine Zidane, excerpt/quoted in ‘Citizen’ by Claudia Rankine

“‘Who Janey tell him the naked woman was?’ ‘Told him she didn’t see none.’ ‘You believe they saw it?’ ‘Well, they saw something.'” – Paul D and Stamp Paid, ‘Beloved’

“I mean / when I see something dull and uneven, / barnacled and ruined, / I know how to get to its iridescent everything.” – Eve L. Ewing, “what I mean when I say I’m sharpening my oyster knife”