Reparation Quotes

“The nation as it is currently constituted has never dealt with a yesterday or tomorrow where we were radically honest, generous, and tender with each other.”
― Kiese Laymon, Heavy

“It’s crucial to practice self-empathy, for trust can’t be willed into existence. That didn’t work when our caregivers tried to impose their will on us, and it won’t work internally, either. Only when we can tap into a place of self-trust, with a reliable process of reparation for inevitable mistakes, can we build trust with another person.”
― Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence

“When I say "I am filled with rage," the criminal says, "But why?"And when I blow things up and make life generally unlivable for the criminal (is my life not unlivable too?) the criminal is shocked, surprised. But nothing can erase my rage- not an apology, not a sum of money, not the death of the criminal- for this wrong can never be made right, and only the impossible can make me still: can a way be found to make what happened not have happened?”
― Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

“Though our childhood abuse left us feeling someone ought to make reparation to us, if we wait a lifetime for that, we may never receive what we need. We choose instead to face the idea that from now on, we are going to take responsibility for caring for ourselves.”
― Maureen Brady, Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse

“The reparative turn, as applied to art, is in many ways a continuation of the orthopedic aesthetic, with the difference being that the twentieth-century model imagined the audience as numb, constricted, and in need of being awakened and freed (hence, an aesthetics of shock), whereas the twenty-first-century model presumes the audience to be damaged, in need of healing, aid, and protection (hence, an aesthetics of care).”
― Maggie Nelson, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint

“God has attached an enormous ball to this chain: the obligation of restoring the neighbor's reputation. Saint Augustine's words here are as true for backbiting as for money: "Non dimittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum: No restoration, no pardon.”
― Fr. Belet

“The end … of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him.”
― John Milton, Of Education

“It struck Linda suddenly that this was the middle of the night. Even here, in the city that never slept, most people now were sleeping. Law firm time was like casino time, only instead of an endless cocktail hour it was always a neon-bright afternoon. The dead center of the workday, all night long.”
― Tara Conklin, The House Girl

“The contrition of the so-called "white race", for the actions of its ancestors, should be tempered only by the regret of the so-called "black race", for the inaction of its.”
― moi

“Do not grieve good Queen in your
place among the aumakua where maile
and the mosses grow.
Some of us are still here. We remember.
We feel.
We burn with the need to seek justice and rectification.
We do not forget the terrible theft of our lands
the destruction of our heritage
the empty eyed look of our children, the rape
of their understanding. Their hunger.
You stand in the center of our fury.
Your songs live on, heard everyday.
We take courage from their words and tunes.
Your love is a legacy to Hawaii's children.
Onipaʻa is the cry. Onipaʻa
You are a powerful symbol
Too strong to die
Too strong to kill the memory of theft
You give us courage
to continue to fight to regain what was ours.
--from "Manawaʻino”
― John Dominis Holt, Hanai: A Poem for Queen Liliuokalani