“A lot of what disturbs us from our tranquility is not literal noise. It’s not the pinging of our phone. It’s when we pull up our phone and see what other people are doing, when we have that FOMO or jealousy or we feel inadequate that we’re not accomplishing or achieving the way they are. Because what we’re forgetting is the path that we’re on, we forget what we’re trying to do, we forget what’s important to us.”
Ryan Holiday
“For the first time in my life, I realized telling the truth was way different from finding the truth, and finding the truth had everything to do with revisiting and rearranging words. Revisiting and rearranging words didn’t only require vocabulary; it required will, and maybe courage. Revised word patterns were revised thought patterns. Revised thought patterns shaped memory. I knew, looking at all those words, that memories were there. I just had to rearrange, add, subtract, sit, and sift until I found a way to free the memory.”
Kiese Laymon, Heavy (Page 86)
Kiese Laymon, Heavy (Page 26)“‘I think I want to lose weight. Can you help me? I be sweating too much when I try to talk to people I don’t want to be sweaty around.’
‘You mean girls, Kie?’
‘I guess I mean girls.’
‘If someone doesn’t like you for you,’ you said, ‘they are not worth sweating around. Save your sweat for someone who values it.'”
“Some days, the tears just be pouring out my eyes, Kie. But Grandmama is too heavy to blow away or drown in tears made because somebody didn’t see me as a somebody worth respecting. You hear me? Ain’t nothing in the world worse than looking at your children drowning, knowing ain’t nothing you can do because you scared that if you get to trying to save them, they might see that you can’t swim either. But I am okay. You hear me?”
Kiese Laymon’s Grandmother, Heavy (Page 8)
“You slept on a slender pallet that night in Vegas. I was supposed to be sleeping next to you but I couldn’t because I was so happy. Your snores reminded me that you were alive. If you were alive and next to me, I had everything in the world I could ever want.”
Kiese Laymon, Heavy (Page 3)
“It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.”
Bruce Springsteen, Badlands | Read Matt’s Blog on This Quote Here ➜
Heavy: An American Memoir [Book]
Book Overview: In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. Heavy is a “gorgeous, gutting…generous” (The New York Times) memoir that combines personal stories with piercing intellect to reflect both on the strife of American society and on Laymon’s experiences with abuse. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
