“At home in Nigeria, all a mother had to do for a baby was wash and feed him and, if he was fidgety, strap him onto her back and carry on with her work while that baby slept. But in England she had to wash piles and piles of nappies, wheel the child round for sunshine during the day, attend to his feeds as regularly as if one were serving a master, talk to the child, even if he was only a day old! Oh, yes, in England, looking after babies was in itself a full-time job.”
― Buchi Emecheta, quote from Second Class Citizen
“The leaves were still on the trees, but were becoming dry, perched like birds ready to fly off.”
― Buchi Emecheta, quote from Second Class Citizen
“One thing she did know was the greatest book on human psychology is the Bible. If you were lazy and did not wish to work, or if you had failed to make your way in society, you could always say, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' If you were a jet-set woman who believed in sleeping around, VD or no VD, you could always say Mary Magdalene had no husband, but didn't she wash the feet of Our Lord? Wasn't she the first person to see our risen saviour? If, in the other hand, you believed in the inferiority of the blacks, you could always say, 'Slaves, obey your masters.' It is a mysterious book, one of the greatest of all books, if not the greatest. Hasn't it got all the answers?”
― Buchi Emecheta, quote from Second Class Citizen
“She did not delude herself into expecting Francis to love her. He had never been taught how to love, but had an arresting way of looking pleased at Adah's achievements.”
― Buchi Emecheta, quote from Second Class Citizen
“Adah could not stop thinking about her discovery that the whites were just as fallible as everyone else. There were bad whites and good whites, just as there were bad blacks and good blacks! Why then did they claim to be superior?”
― Buchi Emecheta, quote from Second Class Citizen
“She, who only a few months previously would have accepted nothing but the best, had by now been conditioned to expect inferior things. She was now learning to suspect anything beautiful and pure. Those things were for the whites, not the blacks.”
― Buchi Emecheta, quote from Second Class Citizen
“She had gambled with marriage, just like most people, but she had gambled unluckily and had lost.”
― Buchi Emecheta, quote from Second Class Citizen
Buchi Emecheta
Born place: in Lagos, Nigeria
Born date July 21, 1944
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“That's what it's going to be then, brothers, as I come to the like end of this tale. You have been everywhere with your little droog Alex, suffering with him, and you have viddied some of the most grahzny bratchnies old Bog ever made, all on to your old droog Alex. And all it was was that I was young. But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no longer, oh no. Alex like groweth up, oh yes.
But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky, where you cannot go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning young earth and the stars and the old Luna up there and your old droog Alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate. And all that cal. A terrible grahzny vonny world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that call.”
― Anthony Burgess, quote from A Clockwork Orange
“Come on, Hathaway," he said, taking my arm. "You can be my partner. Let’s see what you’ve been doing all this time."
An hour later, he had his answer.
"Not practicing, huh?"
"Ow,” I groaned, momentarily incapable of normal speech.
He extended a hand and helped me up from the mat he’d knocked me down on—about fifty times.
"I hate you,” I told him, rubbing a spot on my thigh that was going to have a wicked bruise tomorrow.
"You’d hate me more if I held back."
"Yeah, that’s true," I agreed, staggering along as the class put the equipment back.
"You actually did okay."
"What? I just had my ass handed to me."
"Well, of course you did. It’s been two years. But hey, you’re still walking. That’s something." He grinned mockingly.
"Did I mention I hate you?”
He flashed me another smile, which quickly faded to something more serious. "Don’t take this the wrong way…I mean, you really are a scrapper, but there’s no way you’ll be able to take your trials in the spring—"
"They’re making me take extra practice sessions," I explained. Not that it mattered. I planned on getting Lissa and me out of here before those practices really became an issue.
"Extra sessions with who?"
"That tall guy. Dimitri."
Mason stopped walking and stared at me. "You’re putting in extra time with Belikov?"
"Yeah, so what?"
"So the man is a god."
"Exaggerate much?" I asked.
"No, I’m serious. I mean, he’s all quiet and antisocial usually but when he fights...wow. If you think you’re hurting now, you’re going to be dead when he’s done with you."
Great. Something else to improve my day.”
― Richelle Mead, quote from Vampire Academy
“Every life is different because you passed this way and touched history. Even the child Ruth May touched history. Everyone is complicit. The okapi complied by living, and the spider by dying. It would have lived if it could. Listen: being dead is not worse than being alive. It is different, though. You could say the view is larger.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Poisonwood Bible
“One must find the source within one's own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking -- a detour, an error.”
― Hermann Hesse, quote from Siddhartha
“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"
I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"
To shrug.”
― Ayn Rand, quote from Atlas Shrugged
Shoeless Joe
Black Hole
The Summer of Katya
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