The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic

Risk discomfort and solitude for understanding.

In the West we cling to the past like limpets. In Haiti the present is the axis of all life. As in Africa, past and future are but distant measures of the present, and memories are as meaningless as promises.

Only, in Haiti, I realized, is it possible to drink rum and haggle with a god.

She had a hundred precocious ideas, and some were good and true, but they could never be hers until she found them alone, for ideas are but words unless they are sown in experience.

It was amusing to look at that colorful case so symbolic of an entire nation. Haiti, it is said, is the place to discover how much can be done with little.

For she was young, and whether she knew it or not she was torn between two worlds, that of her lineage, which she bore like a weight, and everything that awaited out there beyond the ocean. One knew just by looking at her that she would have to go sometime. She had a hundred precocious ideas, and some were good and true, but they could never be hers until she found them alone, for ideas are but words unless they are sown in experience.