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Expressing our full range of emotions is healing to the spirit and engages us in the practice of self-acceptance, which is so essential to self-love. Underneath the stern expression I saw my mother and many of her friends wear was an ongoing fear that if they let their guards down, even for a minute, they would be disrespected, hurt, or violated in some way. To love, we have to let fear go and live faith-based lives. Living in faith means that we recog-nize, as our wise black female ancestors did, that we do have the power to decolonize our minds, invent ourselves, and dwell in the spirit of love that is our true destiny.

— Salvation by bell hooks (Page 112)

The incredible resiliency of spirit enslaved black people possessed has often deflected attention away from the legacy of psychological woundedness the experiences of enslavement generated. In the past, black leaders were so eager to insist that black folks had triumphed over the evils of slavery and the brutality of racial apartheid that there was little cultural space to talk psychoanalytically about post-traumatic stress and negative scars on the psyche.

— Salvation by bell hooks (Page 97)

Usually folks blame drugs for the moral breakdown in poor communities. But drugs, hard and soft, have always been present in black life. The social context in which they were once used was one that emphasized pleasure, not escape from dehumanization and pain. When poor and destitute people of any race are made to feel that they really have no right to exist because they lack the material goods that give life meaning, it is this immoral climate that sets the stage for widespread addiction. In recent years, when poverty has been depicted as a crime against humanity, poor people of all races have been seen as criminals and treated accordingly. This demoralization shames. It creates depression, despair, and the dangerous life-threatening nihilism black leaders talk about. It lays the emotional groundwork for widespread addiction.

— Salvation by bell hooks (Page 68 - 69)

Our mothers, unlike their white counterparts, had to try and make a home in the midst of a racist world that had already sealed our fate, an unequal world waiting to tell us we were inferior, not smart enough, unworthy of love. Against this backdrop where blackness was not loved, our mothers had the task of making a home. As angels in the house they had to create a domestic world where resistance to racism was as much a part of the fabric of daily life as making beds and cooking meals. This was no easy task, since internalized racism meant we brought the values of white supremacy into our homes via the color caste system. Everyone knew that the lighter you were the luckier you were. And everyone judged you on the basis of your skin color.

— Salvation by bell hooks (Page 35)

Love is profoundly political. Our deepest revolution will come when we understand this truth. Only love can give us the strength to go forward in the midst of heartbreak and misery. Only love can give us the power to reconcile, to redeem, the power to renew weary spirits and save lost souls. The transformative power of love is the foundation of all meaningful social change. Without love our lives are without meaning. Love is the heart of the matter. When all else has fallen away, love sustains.

— Salvation by bell hooks (Page 16 - 17)

Le Canada, quatrième pays producteur de pétrole au monde. Les promesses gouvernementales jamais tenues. Le nombre de fois où nous prenons l'avion dans cette tournée de l'Ouest canadien. Mon VUS. Le steak énorme que j'ai mangé hier soir. Pascal a raison, c'est plus confortable d'intimer à nos voisins de se regarder dans le miroir que d'identifier nos propres angles morts. Alors on garde nos œillères et on se vautre dans nos routines. Quand ça se met à chauffer, on pointe les autres du doigt. C'est la faute à Trudeau et à son laxisme, la faute à l'Alberta qui refuse de se mettre au pas, la faute aux lobbies qui ont mainmise sur tout, la faute à Guilbeault, trop accommodant avec son gouvernement. C'est la faute au décalage, je suis épuisé.

— Du bitume et du vent by Vincent Vallières (Page 216)

Je réalise que je connais peu la réalité des francophones du coin, et encore moins celle de toutes ces autres communautés éparpillées au Canada et partout en Amérique du Nord. Qui sont-ils, ces Franco-Canadiens et ces Franco-Américains issus des cultures irlandaise, italienne, haïtienne, maghrébine et toutes les autres ? Qu'est-ce qui les pousse à continuer cette bataille pour leur langue ? Comment nous perçoivent-ils, ces citoyens de Hearst, de Kapuskasing, de Lafayette, des Antilles? Notre tendance à nous croire seuls dans cet effort de résistance est-elle vue comme de l'arrogance? Nos luttes se font dans un confort qui se confond avec de l'indifférence, voire de la complaisance, quand on les compare avec celles de tous ces alliés naturels qu'on oublie trop souvent.

— Du bitume et du vent by Vincent Vallières (Page 198 - 199)

Pour les Blancs, le territoire est considéré comme un bien. Tu vas acheter ton terrain, tu vas bâtir ta maison. Tu te dis que c'est à toi, que ça t'appartient. Chez les Innus, ce n'est pas perçu comme ça du tout. C'est difficile à expliquer, le lien au territoire. Il faut le vivre. C'est pour ça qu'y a tant de confrontations dans les débats sur le développement économique qui touche nos ressources naturelles.

— Du bitume et du vent by Vincent Vallières (Page 180 - 181)