Quotes from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“This is not a full circle. It's Life carrying on. It's the next breath we all take. It's the choice we all make to get on with it.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“The land itself, of course, was careless of its name. It still is. You can call it what you like, fight all the wars you want in its name. Change its name altogether if you like. The land is still unblinking under the African sky. It will absorb white man's blood and the blood of African men, it will absorb blood from slaughtered cattle and the blood from a woman's birthing with equal thirst. It doesn't care.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“Once, I discovered the skulls of two impala rams, their horns locked into an irreversible figure-of-eight; the two animals had been trapped in combat, latched to each other during the battle of the rut. The harder they had pulled to escape from each other, the more intractably stuck they were, until they had fallen exhausted, to their knees, in an embrace of hatred that had killed them both. When I picked up the skulls to add to my growing collection of what Vanessa called "Bobo's smelly pile," the hooked horns fell away from each other and the story of the impalas' death struggle was undone.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“But I plucked a new, different, worldly soul for myself -- maybe a soul I found in the spray thrown up by the surge of that distant African river as it plummets onto black rocks and sends up into the sun a permanent arc of a rainbow.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“Well-bred' ensured buckled noses, high-arched feet, a predisposition to madness, and ... an innate belief in our own unquestioning superiority.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“But this is africa, so hardly anything is normal.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“The schools wear the blank faces of war buildings, their windows blown blind by rocks or guns or mortars. Their plaster is an acne of bullet marks. The huts and small houses crouch open and vulnerable; their doors are flimsy pieces of plyboard or sacks hanging and lank. Children and chickens and dogs scratch in the red, raw soil and stare at us as we drive through their open, eroding lives.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“All of us are mad and then she adds,smiling, but I'm the only one with a certificate to prove it”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“There is a madman who lives on the road to Mkushi. Every full moon he comes out onto the tarmac and digs a deep trench across the road. Dad would like to find the madman and bring him back to the farm. 'Think what a strong bugger he is, eh?' 'Yes, but you could only get him to work when there was a full moon.' 'Which is twice as hard as any other Zambian.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“The world looks better when your belly is full, brighter and more hopeful. After”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“They drink blood," he tells me.
"Who?"
"Leopards."
"Why?"
"For fun. Leopard beer." He laughs.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“We drink the barely cool locally brewed Mosi from the leaky mildew-smelling fridge, keeping an eye out for UFOs, unidentified floating objects, in the bottles.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“She is gently manic, in a pottering sort of way.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“There is only one time of absolute silence. Halfway between the dark of night and the light of morning, all animals and crickets and birds fall into a profound silence as if pressed quiet by the deep quality of the blackest time of night...This silence is how I know it is not yet dawn, nor is it the middle of the night, but it is the place of no-time, when all things sleep most deeply, when their guard is dozing”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“In the hot, slow time of day when time and sun and thought slow to a dragging, shallow, pale crawl, there is the sound of heat. The grasshoppers and crickets sing and whine. Drying grass crackles. Dogs pant. There is the sound of breath and breathing, of an entire world collapsed under the apathy of the tropics.”
― Alexandra Fuller, quote from Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

About the author

Popular quotes

“Love with her would be a field of action, not a need. She was complete whether she won or lost the world. She was her own fortress and her own sanctuary.”
― Edith Pargeter, quote from The Heaven Tree Trilogy

“When you lose someone, they take a bigger place in your heart, not a smaller one. Every day it grows, because you don't stop loving them. You wish you could talk to them. You need their advice. But life doesn't always give us what we need, and it's difficult.”
― Adriana Trigiani, quote from The Shoemaker's Wife

“The pain in her body came first, an intense surge of fire that raged like lava through her veins.
But it could not compare with what followed after.
A wail rose up from her depths. It left her as an inhuman cry.
Finally, she remembered everything.”
― Kelly Creagh, quote from Enshadowed

“I bet she thought she was getting into a fight with a vanilla wafer on roller skates but little did she know she was getting into a fight with a spider sandwich.”
― Andrea Portes, quote from Anatomy of a Misfit

“What a delighted fascination it is, to stand aside and watch our dearest friend perform on stage without us.”
― Richard Bach, quote from The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.