too weird to live, too rare to die

"People couldn’t become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked."

"

If we can forgive what has been done to us …

If we can forgive what we’ve done to others …

If we can leave all of our stories behind. Our being
villians or victims.

Only then can we maybe rescue the world.

But we still sit here, waiting to be saved. While we’re
still victims, hoping to be discovered while we suffer.

"

"

Disliking hip-hop doesn’t make you a racist any more than liking hip-hop makes you not a racist, and I’m sure there are plenty of Stormfront enthusiasts with Rick Ross in their iTunes. If you don’t like Jay-Z because you just don’t like the way he sounds, or you’re sick of his cloying ubiquity, or you wish he’d talk about something other than where he’s from for five seconds—hey, I’m not mad, I don’t like Bruce Springsteen for the same reasons. But if you don’t like rap music—a genre that contains multitudes—because of a self-satisfied moralism, or because you’re scared of it, or because you wish those people would stop talking about their problems and get out of your television and radio and kids’ bedrooms: well.

And I’m not just talking about the American right, I’m talking about all the well-meaning white folks who’ve told me how they want to like Lil Wayne but lo, the misogyny, the violence, the drugs. But, but, I’ll say: Bob Dylan aced misogyny; the Rolling Stones sang about violence; the Velvet Underground knew their way around some drugs. Yeeeah, but it’s different, they’ll say, elongating that “yeah” with conspiratorial inflection: you know what I mean. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Rap music doesn’t get unarmed kids shot to death, “it’s different” does. “It’s different” infuses “these assholes always get away” and gives solace to people who hear that sound bite and nod their empty heads in agreement. “It’s different” is the same logic that suggests a teenager’s skin color combined with the music he listened to means he had it coming, and it’s the same logic that lets a bunch of people feign outrage over a teenager’s use of the n-word to describe himself when they’re really just outraged that he beat them to the punch.

“It’s different” makes me shake with anger because it turns music into a dog-whistle to justify the murder of a kid who doesn’t seem all that “different” from me was when I was his age, not that different at all. I liked Skittles and hoodies and weed, too. And yeah, I’m white and never worried about getting shot for any of it, which is only the most loathsome excuse for not identifying with someone that I can possibly think of.

"

"Yes, terrible things happen, but sometimes those terrible things- they save you."

"The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don’t be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger."

"Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?"

"In the end, it’s never what you worry about that gets you."

"It’s all mirror, mirror on the wall because beauty is power the same way money is power the same way a gun is power."

"Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second."

"Yes, terrible things happen, but sometimes those terrible things-they save you."

"We’d turn our lives into a terrible adventure. A true-life horror story with a happy ending. A trial we’d survive to talk about."

"A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection."

"Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It’s all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self portrait. Everything is a diary."

"Torture is torture and humiliation is humiliation only when you choose to suffer."