Top 100 Tia Williams Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 2 of 3

51. “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

52. “I thought you were a problem that needed solving. But you don’t need solving. You need understanding.”

— Tia Williams

53. “Know why I have nice skin? No man stressing me out.”

— Tia Williams

54. “If you listen hard enough, you can tell what a person needs from you. And if you give them what they need, you’ve got a friend for life.”

— Tia Williams

55. “All she wanted was to escape this repetitive, redundant hell.”

— Tia Williams

56. “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

57. “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

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. “Which one of you is the turtle?” “I’m sorry?” asked Eva. “Which one of you is the turtle? You know, the one who leaves and comes back and leaves again, while the other waits?” she said, spinning on her heel. “It’s a metaphor, writers. Think about it.”

— Tia Williams

60. “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

61. “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

62. “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

63. “When we were together, I felt like someone else had stolen all your smiles before me.”

— Tia Williams

64. “Shane was the memory she couldn’t escape. The bridge she’d never burn. The.”

— Tia Williams

65. “And then, for the first time ever, Shane ignored what he desperately wanted and made his first truly responsible decision.”

— Tia Williams

66. “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

67. “Listen, caring about things don’t maek you soft. IT makes you alive.”

— Tia Williams

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

— Tia Williams

69. “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

70. “She remembered that they were never sober. Shane drank to seek oblivion; she stayed high to outrun pain. They did it together – but she cut herself in private.”

— Tia Williams

71. “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

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

— Tia Williams

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

— Tia Williams

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

— Tia Williams

75. “The first time it happened was when Shane was seven, the terrible event that had sent him hurtling from foster home to foster home, where he learned new crimes, new dysfunctions, new ways to be unloved. That was one piece of it. The other was every time he broke his arm, it hurt, but when it dulled, he’d be shot through with this remarkable insight about himself. It was the only time he saw who he was, crystal clear.”

— Tia Williams

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

— Tia Williams

77. “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

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

— Tia Williams

79. “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

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

— Tia Williams

81. “It sounds like it tastes good.”

— Tia Williams

82. “Eva turned to face him. “I’m so sorry.” “No, I’m sorry. That’s what I came to New York to say. I’m sorry I broke my promise. And I’m sorry I didn’t find you the second I was released. But by then, you’d published your first book. You were a success, and I didn’t want to ruin it. Back then, I was convinced that I ruined.”

— Tia Williams

83. “She kept shifting it around her hips. It was a sample-size 2, which was really a 0, and Eva was a size 4 but a PMS 6.”

— Tia Williams

84. “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

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

— Tia Williams

86. “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

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

— Tia Williams

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

— Tia Williams

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

— Tia Williams

90. “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

91. “Every time one of her terribly dysfunctional relationships imploded, she was confused and stunned. And then with fresh hope, she’d fling herself at another jackass.”

— Tia Williams

92. “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

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

— Tia Williams

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

— Tia Williams

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

— Tia Williams

96. “Lizette didn’t lay eyes on Audre till she was two. It was cruel. She hadn’t raised her daughter to have such ghastly manners. But in the end, maybe Genevieve had been right to sever ties. Genevieve was Eva now, and she and Audre were both thriving. Everything turns out the way it oughta, she thought.”

— Tia Williams

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

— 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. “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

100. “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