Top 100 Tia Williams Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “When we were together, I felt like someone else had stolen all your smiles before me.”

— Tia Williams

52. “You don’t promise things to kids and then disappear.”

— Tia Williams

53. “Religion. Hmm. I guess it’s like fire. In good hands, fire can be used to do positive things, like keep you warm. Make s’mores. In bad hands, it can burn a witch at the stake. Lynch a Black body.”

— Tia Williams

54. “Maybe that’s what real adult love was. Being fearless enough to hold each other close no matter how catastrophic the world became.”

— Tia Williams

55. “I just keep waiting for it not to hurt so bad. Every time I meet a woman, I want her to be you. And these sweet, pretty, smart girls fail so miserably. There’s nothing wrong with them; they’re just not you. You know that ‘other half’ people spend their life looking for? I already found her. She’s somewhere watching Inside the Actor’s Studio and eating yellow Skittles without me. I know who she is. But I can’t have her.”

— Tia Williams

56. “Prison is the school of the unlearned lesson.”

— Tia Williams

57. “Over the years, during lazy daydreams, she’d sometimes allowed herself to fantasize about running into him. But in her thoughts, they’d still been kids. She couldn’t imagine them relating to each other as adults. Whatever Shane sparked in her, she’d thought she’d outgrown. But they weren’t who they used to be. They were better.”

— Tia Williams

58. “I know too much,” he said, his words weighted with old pain. The kind that makes a home on the fringes of your thoughts forever.”

— Tia Williams

59. “Also, she missed her mom. They’d just chatted on the phone, and she’d sounded so serious. And distracted, as if she were speaking to Audre from galaxies away. Audre knew her mother, so she knew what was wrong. What was missing. And there was only one person who could help.”

— Tia Williams

60. “Acting sober is an art,” he explained. “The trick is to say very little and be very still. And if you do that too well, sleep inevitably happens.”

— Tia Williams

61. “I know you twist history to make things easier for you, but I’ve never made you do anything. Do you ever think about your role in all of this?”

— Tia Williams

62. “You put me back together when I was in pieces. You gave me confidence, and reminded me that I was lovable. You saved me.”

— Tia Williams

63. “There’s an alternate universe where I never left.”

— Tia Williams

64. “Long ago, she’d learned that life could be bitterly disappointing if allowed. There were blows and stumbles, but your job was to stay interested in the world.”

— Tia Williams

65. “The burden isn’t on me to explain it, Rich. The burden’s on y’all to fix it. Good luck.”

— Tia Williams

66. “I just don’t like being alone. Because then I miss you too much. I start wanting to be where I can’t be, and I hate that feeling.”

— Tia Williams

67. “Shane wasn’t far removed from the man he’d been when he passed out on Gayle King’s shoulder as Jesse Williams announced that he’d won the 2009 NAACP Award for Outstanding Fiction.”

— Tia Williams

68. “Don’t you want to know why?” With twinkly eyes, he said, “Tell me later.” “Bold of you to assume there’ll be a later.” “Bold of you to assume there won’t be.”

— Tia Williams

69. “He’d forgotten, because he had no experience with being needed.”

— Tia Williams

70. “Shane was her lighthouse. If he went dark, she’d be lost, treading black water forever.”

— Tia Williams

71. “You don’t date, Mommy. What even is your type, the Invisible Man?”

— Tia Williams

72. “Years ago, she’d thought love wasn’t real unless it drew blood.”

— Tia Williams

73. “Have you ever been in a Walmart?” asked Eva. “Physically, yes. Spiritually, no.”

— Tia Williams

74. “How do you finish a love story that you... you never wanted to end?”

— Tia Williams

75. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go home and feed my two kittens, Growth and Metamorphosis.”

— Tia Williams

76. “How,” she started, “do you explain this to people?” “I don’t.” “That simple, huh?” Eva was awed. “It’s ours,” he said simply. “Sacred.”

— Tia Williams

77. “Finally, Shane angled the microphone up and spoke five words. “This is for the misfit.”

— Tia Williams

78. “These partygoers hadn’t been the cool kids growing up. They’d spent their adolescence buried in art books, scrawling poems into steno pads during recess, living full stories in their heads. Distracted by their artistic micro-obsessions, many forgot to learn how to engage with the world. They were too busy studying life, storing up their notes to use later in a novel, a song, a script, a painting. They were observers, not joiners.”

— Tia Williams

79. “All these years.” Genevieve’s voice sounded reedy. “All these years, I thought he was a coward. A liar. I hated him.” “Well, who’s to hate if it ain’t him?”

— Tia Williams

80. “The concept of ‘father’ just feels made up, like Santa or the Easter Bunny.”

— Tia Williams

81. “I cut myself. He didn’t do it. And I’d been taking drugs – your drugs, or getting them from your boyfriends – my whole life. I wasn’t your innocent little baby.”

— Tia Williams

82. “She’d hoped he’d be her forever guy. She was so tired of starting over with a new man every couple years, only to be abandoned for unspecified reasons. When bad things happened over and over, it was a sign. God was telling you to change. Your attitude, your hair, your address.”

— Tia Williams

83. “And here’s what’s really good,” continued Belinda. “The publishing industry has a hard time processing Black characters unless we’re suffering.”

— Tia Williams

84. “Like when Spotify plays a song you haven’t heard since childhood, and it reminds you who you are. Like “Oh yeah, I’m a person who knows all the words to Will Smith’s ‘Wild Wild West.”

— Tia Williams

85. “Because even bigger than her sadness was her determination.”

— Tia Williams

86. “Somehow, he’d snaked into her head and sunk his fangs into her brain, poisoning her with hope. A cruel trick.”

— Tia Williams

87. “Eva bit her lip, trying to keep her guilty, thrilled smile from spreading. Shane. She’d divulged all to him.”

— Tia Williams

88. “So instead of writing about Gia, a witch who uses her powers to fight for a man, I’m fighting for myself.”

— Tia Williams

89. “The girl threw up a Black Power fist and bounced.”

— Tia Williams

90. “Shane and Eva were her writer children. And as their mama, she had a right to get to the bottom of their situationship.”

— Tia Williams

91. “The whole afternoon was delicious – so much so that Shane was already nostalgic for it before it had even ended.”

— Tia Williams

92. “Nooo. Not today, of all days. She’d begged her mom not to invite her boyfriends over. And Lizette always assured her that she’d stop, that their home would be a no-man zone.”

— Tia Williams

93. “Books were her kids.”

— Tia Williams

94. “Just say it,” Eva said with a smile. “I’ve never said it. To anyone.” “It won’t hurt, I promise.” Shane grinned, a heart-stopping thing. Then laid his face on her breasts, closing his eyes. “Ready?” he asked. “Ready.” “I love you,” said Shane. “Dramatically, violently, and forever.” She kissed the top of his head, smiling brighter than the sun. “I’ve always loved you,” he whispered. “What a coincidence,” she whispered back. “I’ve always loved you, too.”

— Tia Williams

95. “How do you think she got there?” Shane’s voice was an unsteady mix of regret and pain. “I found her number in your phone, and I called her. When she got to the house, she called the paramedics. And the police. And sent me to prison.” The blood drained from Eva’s face. “No.” “Ask her,” he said gently. “Ask her.”

— Tia Williams

96. “But inexplicable things happened to him, and Shane accepted life’s oddities. He didn’t know if this made him an adventurer or an idiot, but one thing was true – nothing interesting ever came from a clear path of rationality.”

— Tia Williams

97. “I like being single,” Eva continued quietly. “I don’t want anyone to have to really see me.”

— Tia Williams

98. “Whether I lose you for years or wake up to your face every morning. I love you. You’re my home. And I want you forever.”

— Tia Williams

99. “They both giggled, until they’d forgotten what was funny. Eventually, they lapsed into comfortable silence, enjoying the sun.”

— Tia Williams

100. “But she’d never wanted kids. Books were her kids.”

— Tia Williams