Vanessa Woods · 278 pages
Rating: (1.7K votes)
“We do terrible things to the ones we love. We cheat and lie and betray them, for thirty pieces of silver or our own selfish hearts. The only way love endures is because of one simple gift. Forgiveness.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“When I talk to people about what makes us human, some people say it’s our tears. Because we are the only ones who weep, only we can feel true sorrow. When I hear this, I remember Isiro’s face, her anguished eyes as she cried for Mikeno, how she screamed at the keepers with her teeth bared and pushed at the poles. How she dashed back to his body and dug her fingers into his chest as if the strength of her grip could bring him back. There is sorrow without tears. Of course there is.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“It is a cumulative tragedy, the same tragedy that blights the entire country. With so many dead bodies, how do you begin to rebuild? How do you trust enough to hope? And how do you hold on to life when it no longer seems worth living?”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“If there are those you love, whoever or wherever you are, hold them. Find them and hold them as tightly as you can. Resist their squirming and impatience and uncomfortable laughter, and just feel their heart throbbing against yours. Give thanks that for this moment, for this one precious moment, they are here, they are with you, and they know they are utterly, completely, entirely loved.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“When Joseph Conrad saw how Europeans behaved in Congo in 1890, he described them as “reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage…To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.” More than a hundred years later, not much has changed.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“There is something in the eyes of a bonobo that you don’t see in those of a tiger or a shark. They are human eyes, but not the cautious glimpse of a stranger you pass on a city street, or the pretended interest of a shrink you’re paying $300 an hour. Or someone you think you recognize but don’t. The eyes of a bonobo are the eyes of your best friend or a lover or a priest. They see into you. They see nothing else. They invite confession.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“The power of sadness has always amazed me.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“The Chinese say that love is balance. He is the water to my fire.The chimpanzee to my bonobo. And when I am mired in life’s ugliness, when I can see only what’s decaying both inside and outside my own head, he is the blindness I need, the mindless faith in happy endings.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
“Claudine tells me there was fluid around Bolombe’s heart. That the stress of his capture was too much. I always thought hearts were broken, but apparently they drown.”
― Vanessa Woods, quote from Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo
Vanessa Woods
Born place: in Australia
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“ And now the sun with more effectual beams Had cheered the face of earth, and dried the wet From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds, Who all things now behold more fresh and green, After a night of storm so ruinous, Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray, To gratulate the sweet return of morn.”
― John Milton, quote from Paradise Regained
“The plant and animal kingdoms (excluding humans) offered some pleasant surprises. Organisms from these realms are much simpler to figure out. Their behaviours are not muddied by personality factors or flawed belief systems. If an insect smells like a fart, you can be sure that the stench has a genetic basis. It is neither trying to make a lofty point, nor is it suffering from an inferiority complex.”
― Taona Dumisani Chiveneko, quote from The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption
“After all, what more does a true genius want? The mind itself is the palace where all the real treasures, the works of art, the indulgences exist.”
― Alex Scarrow, quote from The Eternal War
“What use will money be to him in the Sands.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
“I never thought that I would be saying these words. I would rather have died than utter these words a few months ago. But my whole mindset had undergone a drastic change since then. The Amir’s speech was the straw that broke the back of my jihadi resolve. In fact, I now secretly resolved that my personal jihad would be against the evil Pakistan-sponsored jihadi movement that focused on slaughtering innocent civilians.”
― Vivek Pereira, quote from Indians in Pakistan
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