“To walk through unknown streets in cities where you are merely learning the language is to force yourself into a new state of hypervigilance. You are a traveler, and hopefully not just a tourist, and must appear calm, but maintain your bearings. Not to get too lost, too off course and without alternatives, without an escape plan in the event of a dangerous situation.”

“Fine art is the discipline of breaking rules.”

“Someone can tell you all your life that you’re inferior, but it doesn’t matter until you accept it and allow for validation. Once validation takes place, it’s then that the colonial malaise sets in like smallpox.”

“Stigma's power lies in silence. The silence that persists when discussion and action should be taking place. The silence one imposes on another for speaking up on a taboo subject, branding them with a label until they are rendered mute or preferably unheard.”

“Indifference is the worst kind of response when love is expressed. Hate is not the antithesis of love; it’s the nonexistence of feeling, a pervasive apathy. When hate is present, so is love. It’s passion gone sour and fueled by pain, but, nonetheless, it’s passion and love is apparently still alive. Yet when indifference seeps into our spirits, an emotional numbness and permitted scotoma takes the place of any passion – whether it’s love or hate – and resigns in a new state of being.”

“Get acquainted with your shadow, or find yourself surprised when a crisis emerges.”

“How often do the poor in the US get to stand in front of their nation's Marie Antoinette's and shove the stale, mass-produced cake of lower class reality back into their mouths?”

“With even the slightest upset, detachment soon followed. I didn’t lose sleep over men, and I was too restless to be tied down. The grass didn’t even have time to grow around my feet before I was planning my next escape – whether it was to another state or out of someone’s life.”

“It is not enough to hope for something to happen and throw it into the universe. You, too, must also work to make it happen.”

“Home.” This was my mantra, my four-letter savior.”

“Travel can sometimes push us to lose ourselves and find ourselves at once. The shedding of old prejudices, dead skin, and the opening of one’s eyes is far better than what any mainstream news outlet could ever tell you.”