“The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly pat...” — Leslie Jamison Quote

“The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly patterns. 'Here' is yard sales with bins full of stuffed animals and used water guns. Here is Crips turf.”

“There's something about that puritanical narrative of progress and upward mobility and work ethic that the glorification of abstinence fits pretty neatly into. That pairs with the fact that 12-step recovery has had too large a monopoly on how treatment is understood in America.”

“When you're a writer and something difficult happens to you, one of the things involved in that is this emergence of narrative potential. And there's then a kind of self-consciousness about telling a story in which you suffered.”

“I keep my hair curly and natural because I really just wanna show who I am.”

“There are situations when, in your singing, in your interpretation of songs, for instance, when you want a straight tone. And I have to work really hard at getting a straight tone... That's sort of like if you have curly hair, you have curly hair.”

“I think what is magic about black-girl hair is, at its basic level, it's just resilient. It can go from straight to curly in the same day. It's just transformative. When you don't feel so strong, the hair can be a sign of empowerment.”