What's Mine and Yours Quotes

“If they’re going to look at you, then you’ve got to give them something to look at.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“They’re always going to be looking at you. To see if you measure up. To see if you’ll make a mistake. They’ll try and see if you’re really as smart as they’re afraid you are. And you’ve got to answer their question.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“Maybe this was another way that she was white: the ease with which she could ignore calamity, focus mainly on what she wanted.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“She wanted Gee to know this music was for him, that irreverence and rage weren’t just for white boys. He could get a little drunk if he wanted to; he could play in a band; he could say shocking things, wear a dress, pierce his ears, any part of his body that he wanted; he could scream and break things, as long as they belonged to him and it wasn’t in her house. She didn’t want him to act out, but she didn’t want him to worry too much about how the world would see him either.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“the fuel needed to run a marriage, how exacting it was to be so close to someone, to see them with the same mixture of sympathy and scorn that you saw yourself. It didn’t even take an unkindness to feel let down by the person with whom you had vested your whole life.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“For all her boldness, Jade was good at citing risks, naming all the things that could sabotage a life. In the weeks after a homicide in the neighborhood, elementary school kids did worse on tests. Teenagers without fathers were more likely to wind up parents before graduation. Black boys got sent to the principal's office more.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“They had laughed, as if Robbie hadn’t nearly drowned. His mouth was already open when Lacey May tilted him back onto the grass. The earth stuck to their wet skin; there were ants. They went on kissing for a long time. Robbie had a gummy, hot sensation in his shorts, a lightness in his head. It was the best he’d ever felt, and the best he would ever feel, until he had cocaine.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“He sent her missives and hoped that she could hear. You are beautiful, he said, and I want you. Forever, he said. I am yours.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“Not when you’re a mother. Your circumstances stare you in the face every morning, ask you what’s for breakfast.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“You think you’re through with a person, but you’re never through, not when you’ve loved someone like that.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“I guess what I’m trying to say is the only time I’ve never tried to prove anything was with you. I didn’t worry about what other people would think or what it said about me. It was simple. I wanted you for myself.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours

“She knew whom he wanted to live with, and she couldn't bear to hear him say it.”
― Naima Coster, What's Mine and Yours