“We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.”
“The slave who dances is free ... while he is dancing.”
“There is room in the human heart for all the divinities.”
“She intended to swallow the world and he lived crushed by reality.”
“Music is a wind that blows away the years, memories, and fear, that crouching animal I carry inside me.”
“الأم و الوطن لا يمكن المزاح فيهما: إنهما مقدسان.”
“I strike the ground with the soles of my feet and life rises up my legs, spreads up my skeleton, takes possession of me, drives away distress and sweetens my memory. The world trembles.”
“لقد صار لدينا تاريخ مشترك، يمكننا النظر إلى الماض ورواية أحداث الأيام التي عشناها معاً، وحساب الأحزان و الأفراح، هكذا يصنع الحب، دون تسرع، ويوماً بيوم”
“Sometimes I have these premonitions and I don't forget them, so I will be prepared when they happen.”
“Zacharie did not learn of the sorrow his wife was living becasue she was careful to hide it. Tete kept that first love, the stromngest in her life, a secret. She mentioned it only rarely because she could not offer Zacharie a passion of the same intensity; the relationship they shared was genntle and free of urgency.”
“قبر مبهر!، انه الشيء الوحيد الذي يبقى، فبعد مئة سنة سيتمكن زائروا المقبرة من الاعجاب بقبري و سيتخيلون أنني عشت حياة طيبة”
“As Sancho said, money does not buy happiness but it does buy nearly everything else.”
“Dance, dance, Zarité, the slave who dances is free…while he is dancing,” he told me. I have always danced.”
“العبد الذي يرقص هو عبدٌ حر طالما هو يرقص”
“Long before the Europeans arrived in Africa, the blacks were enslaving each other. They still do,” said Valmorain. “Just as whites are enslaving each other, monsieur,” the physician countered. “Not all Negroes are slaves, nor all slaves black. Africa is a continent of free people. Millions of Africans are subjected to slavery but many more are free. Slavery is not their destiny, just as is also the case with thousands of whites who are slaves.”
“Capitaine Etienne Relais was known to be incorruptible in an ambience in which vice was the norm, honor for sale, and laws made to be broken, and men operated on the assumption that he who did not abuse power did not deserve to have it.”
“That was the beginning of the revolution. Many years have gone by and blood keeps running, soaking the soil of Haiti, but I am not there to weep.”
“إن القداسة ثقيلة الوطأ حقاً يا تيتي، عليك أن تهربي من الأب انطوان وإلا ستنتهين إلى عجوز هرمة مثل الأخت لوسي”
“لم يكن يقدم نصائح لأنه أكتشف من خلال تجاربه أنها إضاعة للوقت، فكل شخص يرتكب أخطاءه ويتعلم منها”
“Leanne lighted an oil lamp and they continued until the moment came to receive the baby. 'Erzulie, mother loa, help it be born,' Tete prayed aloud. 'Saint Raymond Nonatus, pay attention, do not let an African saint get ahead of you,' Leanne answered in the same tone, and they both burst out laughing.”
“How would I run with my bad leg? And what would become of the people who need my care? Besides, it doesn't mean anything for me to be free and everyone else slaves," the healer answered. Tete hadn't thought of that, and it kept buzzing around her brain like a bottlefly. She talked about it with her godmother many times, but she was never able to accept the idea that her freedom was irreparably bound to that of the other slaves.”
“النقود لاتشتري السعادة، ولكنها تشتري كل ماعدا ذلك تقريبًا”
“A slave lacks incentives; for him it is better to work slowly and badly, since his effort benefits only the master, but free people work hard to save and get ahead,, that is their incentive.”
“I called him Grandfather, because according to him you do not have to be of the same blood or same tribe to be a member of the same family, but in truth I should have called him Maman. He was the only mother I ever knew.”
“There was an army of hundreds of thousands of spirits fighting alongside the blacks, and that was why finally the whites were defeated. Everyone is in agreement about that, even the French soldiers, who felt the spirits’ fury. Maître Valmorain, who did not believe in anything he did not understand, and as he understood very little believed in nothing, was also convinced that the dead aided the rebels.”
“In her experience, light skin and money made almost anything easier. She wanted her grandchildren to come into the world with an advantage.”
“Walking and walking across the world he will gradually find consolation, and one day, when he is too fatigued to take another step, he will realize that he cannot escape sorrow, he will have to tame it, so it doesn’t harass him.”
“His wife, Leanne, who came to his waist, looked like an undernourished adolescent with the face of a fly, but her fragility was deceptive: she had given birth to six male children and was expecting the seventh. She knew it would be male because God was determined to test her patience.”
“Leanne lighted an oil lamp and they continued until the moment came to receive the baby. “Erzulie, mother loa, help it be born,” Tété prayed aloud. “Saint Raymond Nonatus, pay attention, do not let an African saint get ahead of you,” Leanne answered in the same tone, and they both burst out laughing.”
“much strength and endurance did she have stored inside her? He hoped to God she had enough to see this nightmare through.”
“In the old days people died and that was that; you might hope to see them in heaven, but once they were dead they were dead. It was simple, it was definite. Now … ” He shook his head angrily. “Now people die but their Soulkeeper can revive them, or take them to a heaven we know exists, without any need for faith. We have clones, we have regrown bodies—most of me is regrown; I wake up sometimes and think, Am I still me? I know you’re supposed to be your brain, your wits, your thoughts, but I don’t believe it is that simple.”
“...of all things this was the saddest, that life goes on: if one leaves one's lover, life should stop for him, and if one disappears from the world, then the world should stop, too: and it never did. And that was the real reason for most people getting up in the morning: not because it would matter but because it wouldn't.”
“Didn't we talk about this?"
"HAIL!"
"That isn't an answer." I planted my hands on my hips. "Was there a reason for shoving the gummy bears off the counter? Did they tell you they were suicidal? On second thought," I raised a hand, palm out, "don't answer that. If the candy is talking, I don't want to know.”
“لا تناهضوا الشر, فإن مناهضة الشر غذاء له يهيجه ويذكيه.”
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