# Quote — Tommy Orange, There There

> Our heads are on flags, jerseys, and coins. Our heads were on the penny first, of course, the Indian cent, and then on the buffalo nickel, both before we could even vote as a people — which, like the truth of what happened in history all over the world, and like all that spilled blood from slaughter, are now out of circulation.

- Author: [Tommy Orange](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tommy-orange.md)
- Book: [There There](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tommy-orange/there-there.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tommy_Orange#There_There_(2018)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/tommy-orange/there-there/our-heads-are

## More from this book

> You were white, you were brown, you were red, you were dust. You were both and neither. When you took baths, you’d stare at your brown arms against your white legs in the water and wonder what they were doing together in the same body.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tommy-orange/there-there/you-were-white.md)

> They tore unborn babies out of bellies, took what we were intended to be, our children before they were children, babies before they were babies.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tommy-orange/there-there/they-tore-unborn.md)

> Some of us got this feeling stuck inside, all the time, like we’ve done something wrong. Like we ourselves are something wrong … We drink alcohol because it helps us feel like we can be ourselves and not be afraid. But we punish ourselves with it.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tommy-orange/there-there/some-of-us-got.md)