Alex Haley · 729 pages
Rating: (128.1K votes)
“Is this how you repay my goodness--with badness?” cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “That is the way of the world.”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“The first time he had taken the massa to one of these "high-falutin' to-dos," as Bell called them, Kunta had been all but overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: awe, indignation, envy, contempt, fascination, revulsion—but most of all a deep loneliness and melancholy from which it took him almost a week to recover. He couldn't believe that such incredible wealth actually existed, that people really lived that way. It took him a long time, and a great many more parties, to realize that they didn't live that way, that it was all strangely unreal, a kind of beautiful dream the white folks were having, a lie they were telling themselves: that goodness can come from badness, that it's possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat, and mother's milk made possible the life of privilege they led.”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“He meant you no harm?" said Omoro.
"He acted very friendly," said the old man, "but the cat always eats the mouse it plats with.”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“Through this flesh, which is us, we are you, and you are us!”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“nightly boiling and then cooling a broth of freshly pounded fudano leaves in which she soaked her feat -and the pale palms of her hands- to an inky blackness. When Kunta asked his mother she told him to run along. So he asked his father, who told him, "The more blackness a woman has the more beautiful she is.”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“Carrying little Kunta in his strong arms, he walked to the edge of the village, lifted his baby up with his face to the heavens, and said softly, “Fend kiling dorong leh warrata ka iteh tee.” (Behold—the only thing greater than yourself.)”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“So Dad has joined the others up there. I feel that they do watch and guide, and I also feel that they join me in the hope that this story of our people can help alleviate the legacies of the fact that preponderantly the histories have been written by the winners.”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“I was weeping for all of history's incredible atrocities against fellowmen, which seems to be mankind's greatest flaw...”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“he found himself pondering what it must be like not to belong to someone. What would it feel like to be “free”? It must not be all that good or Massa Lea, like most whites, wouldn’t hate free blacks so much. But then he remembered what a free black woman who had sold him some white lightning in Greensboro had told him once. “Every one us free show y’all plantation niggers livin’ proof dat jes’ bein’ a nigger don’ mean you have to be no slave. Yo’ massa don’ never want you thinkin’ nothin’ ’bout dat.” During”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“لا تحيطوا أبدًا بالعدو تمامًا، ودعوا له مخرجًا للهرب، لأنه سيحارب أقوى وهو يائس إذا ما حوصر”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“He came cripping slowly back up the driveway - when an African remembrance flashed into his mind, and near the front of the house he bent down and started peering around. Determining the clearest prints that Kizzy's bare feet had left in the dust, scooping up the double handful containing those footprints, he went rushing toward the cabin: The ancient forefathers said that precious dust kept in some safe place would insure Kizzy's return to where she made the footprints. He burst through the cabin's open door, his eyes sweeping the room and falling upon his gourd on a shelf containing his pebbles. Springing over there, in the instant before opening his cupped hands to drop in the dirt, suddenly he knew the truth: His Kizzy was gone; she would not return. He would never see his Kizzy again. His face contorting, Kunta flung his dust toward the cabin's roof. Tears bursting, from his eyes, snatching his heavy gourd up high over his head, his mouth wide in a soundless scream, he hurled the gourd down with all his strength, and it shattered against the packed-Earth floor, his 662 pebbles representing each month of his 55 rains flying out, ricocheting wildly in all directions.”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“Fend kiling dorong leh warrata ka iteh tee.”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Alex Haley
Born place: in Ithaca, New York, The United States
Born date August 11, 1921
See more on GoodReads
“I’d always told myself that I deserved good things, that I was worthy, but fuck if I ever believed it. You can’t tell yourself anything. Your heart only believes what it feels, and experience is the best teacher.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Falling Away
“Los Angeles is full of places to hide a body, but when the person inside the body doesn’t love you, it’s not an easy thing, turning that breathing person into a dead one.”
― Caroline Kepnes, quote from Hidden Bodies
“I wish I could be as subtle and beautiful. All I know how to do is scream.”
― Alice Oseman, quote from Radio Silence
“When you lose a person, a whole universe goes along with them.”
― Lang Leav, quote from The Universe of Us
“My advice to young writers is, if you can’t marry money, at least don’t marry envy.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Birthday of the World and Other Stories
What the Dog Saw and...
Seven Minutes in Hea...
Here Be Sexist Vampi...
The Gospel of Loki
Emerald Green
The RithmatistBookQuoters 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.
