Barbara Neely

Love and sex, honey. Either one can make you do the damndest things. The two combined will make you a sure ’nough fool.

Anytime you get this many light-skinned black people together at least half of them are going to be folks who act light-skinned.

She wondered how soon after the first baby was born of the rape of a black woman by a white man did some slaver decide that light-skinned slaves were smarter and better by virtue of white blood? And how long after that had some black people decided to take advantage of that myth?

Maybe his stuff was so good it made her think she could fly!

The longer I live, the more boring youth becomes. So redundant. Each generation rediscovers the wheel of rebellion, the wheel of love, and so forth and so on. We hardly know which end is up until we’re in our thirties.

They jealous ’cause you got the night in you. Some people got night in ’em, some got morning, others, like me and your mama, got dusk. But it’s only them that’s got night can become invisible. People what got night in ’em can step into the dark and poof—disappear! Go any old where they want. Do anything. Ride them stars up there, like as not.