Beware of logic.

— Kiana Davenport

Common sense. Mothers are the last riddle, the worst horror, the only consolation.

— Kiana Davenport

Does childhood really happen? Do we imagine it? Everyone remembers something else....

— Kiana Davenport

Everything breaks down but desire. And because we are old, doctors try to shame that out of us. Young punks! Lose one's youth, and doctors take it as axiomatic that you've lost your mind, your balls.

— Kiana Davenport

God not the Saddam, he just the spoiled moody child, but you got to go t'rough him to get to the real power, his mama, Mot'er God. She the real Almighty! She runs the heavens alone. Original single parent. When somethin' bad happen, usually mean she let God try his hand, and he screws up plenty. You need something important, you go directly Mot'er God. Jesus, Mary, Joseph? Day just small potatoes, part of the chorus, NEH?

— Kiana Davenport

Got something to do with guilt,' Toro said. 'Her mother, neh?' 'Guilt. Longing. Got something to do with all of us.

— Kiana Davenport

Inside the terminal at Keyhole, they sat waiting to board, watching husky Hawaiians load luggage onto baggage ramps. Arriving tourists smiled at their dark, muscled bodies, handsome full-featured faces, the ease with which they lifted things of bulk and weight. Departing tourists took snapshots of them. 'That's how they see us', Pond whispered. 'Porters, servants. Hula Dancers, clowns. They never see us as we are, complex, ambiguous, inspired humans.' 'Not all hole see us that way...' Jess argued. Tanya stared at her. 'Yes, all Hole and every foreigner who comes here puts us in one of two categories: The malignant stereotype of vicious, drunken, do-nothing Tanaka and their loose-hipped, whoring whine. Or, the benign stereotype of the childlike, tourist-loving, bare-foot, aloha-spirit natives.

— Kiana Davenport

Recognizing who you are is not the subtext of a life. It's the main point.

— Kiana Davenport

She was kahuna, creating more life around her than was actually there, heightening the momentousness of each living thing by simply gazing upon it.

— Kiana Davenport

So much easier to give. I detest asking.

— Kiana Davenport