Quotes from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“There is not a man in the world who is worth your dignity. Do not confuse self-sacrifice with love.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“To love is a beautiful, mysterious event; do not miss it. Be neither too cautious nor too absorbed. Too many of us reason with our heart and experience with our heads.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Welcome, my dear, to the Western world, land of democracy, freedom, and bigotry.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Until we begin to put pen to paper, we historically do not exist.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Racism is a phenomenal thing; it is like a thick mist that obscures the vision and judgement of even great minds.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“The heart knows no logic beyond need and desire; the head has no senses except the common and the pragmatic. Neither, frankly, is particularly useful in love, anyway.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“I had once been naïve enough to believe that all would be well if you lived by the rules. Good things happened to good people, blessed are the meek, et cetera, et cetera. How disillusioned I have become since then. It hurt, because I wondered now what all the discipline, repression, and suppression had been for if it had not procured me the thing I had most wanted, and it certainly did not guarantee happiness.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Foreign Cash is not the answers to our problems, my friend. Africa needs the hearts and minds of its sons and daughters to nurture it. You were our pride, Mukoma Bryon. When you did not return, a whole village lost its investment. Africa is all that we have. If we do not build it, no one else will.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“I suspect, even more importantly, the aged are hidden away so that we do not remember that one day we shall all walk that path, that we shall one day grow slow and stooped.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“You shall be distinguished overseas by your colourful plumage, graceful flight and beautiful songs. There are so many lovely features that will make you conspicuous among the flock.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, quote from Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

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Popular quotes

“suddenly remembered a beautiful verse by the great Lebanese philosopher Kahlil Gibran: “Mayhap a funeral among men is a wedding feast among the angels.” I imagined my mother at the side of her mother and father, with her own little ones gathered in her arms.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle

“Halbuki komünist değildi Selim.
Düşünmemişti komünizmin ne olduğunu bile.
O sadece on sekiz yaşındaydı
ve yirmi beş kuruş yerine elli kuruş istiyordu
ve on dört saat yerine on saat.
Polis bu kanaatta değildi fakat.
Yatırdılar Selim'i yere.
Selim kalktığı zaman
basamıyordu döşemelere.
Yatırdılar Selim'i yere,
Selim kalktığı zaman
göremiyordu önünü artık.
Yatırdılar Selim'i yere,
Selim kalktı ve yığıldı.
Selim'in koltuklarına girip
karanlık bir odaya götürdüler.
Ve duvarda bir çiviye bağladılar saçlarından,
o suretle ki
döşemeye ancak ayak parmaklarının ucu dokunuyordu.
Bir tramvay geçti sokaktan gıcırtılarla.
Yakın bir yerde yatsı ezanı okunuyordu.
Çözdüler Selim'i çividen,
yatırdılar Selim'i yere.
Ve Selim kalktığı zaman
bir pencere gördü uzaktan
çok uzaktan ama
perdesiz karanlık bir pencere.
Atıldı ona doğru.
Camlar kırıldı şangırdayarak.
İlk önce kayboldu bir insan başı
sonra kayboldu iki ayak.”
― Nâzım Hikmet Ran, quote from Human Landscapes from My Country: An Epic Novel in Verse

“About Miss Debenham," he said rather awkwardly. "You can take it from me that she's all right. She's a pukka sahib.
"What," asked Dr. Constantine with interest, "does a pukka sahib mean?"

"It means," said Poirot, "that Miss Debenham's father and brothers were at the same kind of school as Colonel Arbuthnot was."
"Oh!" said Dr. Constantine, disappointed. "Then it has nothing to do with the crime at all."
"Exactly," said Poirot.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Mord im Orientexpress

“It never gets easier. Somehow, grief becomes a routine part of life. It never leaves, you simply learn to live around it. Looking”
― Nicola Haken, quote from Broken

“Yes, I love your eyes—they are black and deep and almond-shaped but I see the kindness in those eyes I have never seen before,”
― Durjoy Datta, quote from Our Impossible Love

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BookQuoters 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.