“How else, except through being alone for a while, could you ever discover who you really are? But”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“Michel, the tight-jawed president of the Black Student Caucus, who called her “little sister” and would have had potential if he’d remembered to sprinkle in some fun between bouts of righteous indignation.”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“Your strength is the strength of stones. Suddenly,”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“We only waste energy to have horrible fights with the people we love the most.”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“If you believe it, Khaldun had said, I could never convince you otherwise. If you do not, nothing I tell you could sway you. I am the one who should be asking you: Is it the truth? No,”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“When my first wife died long ago, in Ethiopia, I thought I knew grief. But until you have witnessed the death of a loved one to another man’s violence, you know nothing of grief.”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“My mother used to say to me that she collected sorrows and put them in her pocket. Walking around with them that way, by and by, you just learn to carry them all a bit better, to stand up a bit straighter. That’s all life is, on this earth anyway.”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“a remark Khaldun had made once, when Dawit returned from the battlefield against the Italians: What do you gain from it, Dawit? Must a scythe prove itself sharper than a blade of grass? Let grass grow as it will. While”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“They had to work at it, but they found their common ground. Ultimately, though, their differences returned, and she wondered how deeply they ran. How could she continue to overlook them, when they loomed so large? Jessica”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“Is that your lesson?” she asked him. “I’m sorry to hear that, because you always said just the opposite. Love what you have while you have it, before it’s gone. Isn’t that what you were always trying to tell me?” Her damp eyes glimmered.”
― Tananarive Due, quote from My Soul to Keep
“Most peasants did not miss the school.
"What's the point?" they would say.
"You pay fees and read for years, and in the end you are still a peasant, earning your food with your sweat. You don't get a grain of rice more for being able to read books. Why waste time and money?
Might as well start earning your work points right away."
The virtual absence of any chance of a better future and the near total immobility for anyone born a peasant took the incentive out of the pursuit of knowledge. Children of school age would stay at home to help their families with their work or look after younger brothers and sisters. They would be out in the fields when they were barely in their teens. As for girls, the peasants considered it a complete waste of time for them to go to school.
"They get married and belong to other people. It's like pouring water on the ground."
The Cultural Revolution was trumpeted as having brought education to the peasants through 'evening classes." One day my production team announced it was starting evening classes and asked Nana and me to be the teachers. I was delighted. However, as soon as the first 'class' began, I realized that this was no education.
The classes invariably started with Nana and me being asked by the production team leader to read out articles by Mao or other items from the People's Daily. Then he would make an hour-long speech consisting of all the latest political jargon strung together in undigested and largely unintelligible hunks. Now and then he would give special orders, all solemnly delivered in the name of Mao.”
― Jung Chang, quote from Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
“Winter is coming, Elena," he said, and his voice was clear and chilling even over the howling of the wind, "An unforgiving season. Before it comes, you'll have learned what I can and can't do. Before winter is here, you'll have joined me. You'll be mine.”
― L.J. Smith, quote from The Awakening / The Struggle
“Obviously, I lied, Kiera!" he yelled back. "If you haven't noticed, I do that! And what does it matter anyway? She wanted me, you didn't. What do you care if I-"
"Because you're mine!" I yelled back at him, quite unintentionally. Of course, he wasn't actually mine ....
The immediate silence after that was deafening. Kellan's face paled and then slowly got very, very angry. "No, no I'm not! THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT!”
― S.C. Stephens, quote from Thoughtless
“Fue así como ocurrió. Lo que antes parecía puro azar adquirió de repente una dimensión diferente.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Millennium Trilogy
“Barrons knows virtually everything about me. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere he has a little file that encompasses my entire life to date, with neatly mounted, acerbically captioned photos—see Mac sunbathe, see Mac paint her nails, see Mac almost die.”
― Karen Marie Moning, quote from Faefever
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