Sugar and Salt Quotes

“She loved him so much that it hurt. Maybe that was how love worked. If you could handle the pain, you’d find the sweetness.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Is she pretty?”
That would be a hell yes. Big soft eyes, full pink lips. Legs and tight skirts. And those damn cowboy boots. And the yoga pants and bra top she wore sailing. Long blond hair—-at least he thought it was long; she always kept it wound up and clipped in a messy bun. He’d dated white girls before, a time or two. But never someone that white, from Texas. Or that young. She was what, fifteen years younger, at least. An itty-bitty thing who could throw a grown man to the ground.
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s real pretty.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Why do we remember the bad stuff and not the good?”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“They just started throwing these canisters. One of them hit me so I lobbed it back.”
“Nothing at all would have hit you if you’d been minding your business.”
“And nothing will change if nobody takes action against injustice. Remember when you and Mama took me to hear Dr. King speak? Remember what he said? ‘We die when we refuse to stand up for justice.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“The proper balance of sugar and salt was the key to perfect barbecue sauce. Of course, when it came to barbecue sauce, everybody had an opinion about the combination of acid, aromatics, fruit, and flavorings---the ineffable umami---that made each bite so satisfying.
But Margot Salton knew with utter certainty that it all started with sugar and salt. She'd even named her signature product after it: sugar+salt. This sauce was her superpower. Her secret. Her stock-in-trade. When she'd had nothing---no home, no education, no family, no means of support---she had created the powerful alchemy of flavors that made grown men moan with pleasure, cautious women ignore their diets, and skeptical foodies beg for more.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Turns out a woman choosing adoption, even a woman behind bars, gets a lot more support than a woman who needs an abortion or who plans on keeping her baby.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Ida B. Miller,”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“It takes nothing to father a child. It takes everything to be a dad.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“remembered that feeling as if she’d tucked it into her backpack and carried it around with her everywhere she went. This was both a blessing and a burden. A blessing, because this love had shown her, ever so briefly, that heaven could be touched. A burden, because it was a reminder of something she had lost.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Due to the system of mandatory cash bail, people in jails across the US have not yet been convicted of a crime, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Even the innocent might remain in jail for days, weeks, or even years simply because they cannot afford their bail.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“It’s also true that certain medical organizations treat rape survivors with a drug that prevents fertilization but fails to act against a conceived zygote, thus opening the possibility that a pregnancy could occur as the result of the rape.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“There is troubling evidence that dismissal on the grounds of self-defense is far more common for men than women.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Chrystul Kizer, at seventeen a survivor of sex trafficking and abuse, was charged with first degree intentional homicide. LadyKathryn Williams-Julien of New York State killed her husband during an act of domestic violence and was charged with his murder.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Cyntoia Brown was sentenced to life in prison at age sixteen for the murder of the man who subjected her to abuse and sex trafficking;”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“informed by real events. The case of Brittany Smith, who in 2018 shot and killed her rapist and was subsequently indicted for murder,”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Although Margie/Margot’s situation seems unlikely, it was informed by real events. The case of Brittany Smith, who in 2018 shot and killed her rapist and was subsequently indicted for murder, was covered in the national press. The only way for her to gain her freedom was to plead guilty, thus branding herself a felon.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Yes, she was a mess, but she wasn’t fragile. She would not be broken.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“you’re not a criminal. Or a victim. You’re a survivor. Love yourself, honey. Love that girl who lost her mama too young and picked the wrong guy and had to fight for herself. Love that girl—because I do.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“The days of chefs who threw tantrums, who bullied and underpaid their workers, were numbered.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“with adoption, your most sacred creation disappears without you. You can’t hold him in your arms, you can’t claw at the boundary between you. It’s . . . a hollowness. Like I’m missing a piece of myself.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“I always took equal justice for granted. It was kind of a shock to realize how much depends on access to money and power.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“She suspected that a big factor in her choice was the fact that they were both men. They had exactly zero interest in attacking a woman. But it was more than that. It was the love she read on their faces when they looked at each other, their commitment to openly and fiercely love each other even though society might disapprove. Given its conception during a violent rape, this child might also need that strength of commitment and acceptance.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“He said no one has a right to overrule a woman’s choice. He also said it’s unconscionable that this process took as long as it did, and it’s shameful that every court in the system touched this case and still didn’t apply the law. Not only that, the judge who originally granted it was censured.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Adoption is the start of a bittersweet and difficult emotional journey. It’s also the most rewarding and selfless thing I’ve ever done.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“They’d had nothing—a rented spot in a trailer park and a car that was older than Mama herself. And yet Margie had never felt deprived. There was a richness to their lives that had nothing to do with the bank account. Their world was built on a foundation of love and trust between the two of them.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Not for any birth mother I’ve ever met. You don’t ever walk away. You don’t ever forget. This is one of the biggest things that will ever happen to you. One of the biggest things in your life. It will always be part of you. That’s one reason counseling and self-care are part of the process.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“The expected mental health consequences of forcing a woman to carry her rapist’s baby to term, and having to raise it despite an uncertain future, were well documented. Could be, she’d end up crazy after all.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Based on the reading she’d done about rape trauma, Margie knew she wasn’t crazy, but suffering from PTSD.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“He didn’t believe in women’s rights, but in controlling women.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“You know what else is my constitutional right? To get an abortion. You don’t get to choose what rights belong to me.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt