Edwidge Danticat Quotes

"Pretend that this is a time of miracles and we believe in them." ("A Wall of Fire Rising")

All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love...like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too. ("Children of the Sea")

They say the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. I have never been given very much. What was there to take away? ("Children of the Sea")

They say behind the mountains are more mountains. Now I know it's true. I also know there are timeless waters, endless seas, and lots of people in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves. I look up at the sky and I see you there. I see you crying like a crushed snail, the way you cried when I helped you pull out your first loose tooth. Yes, I did love you then. Somehow when I looked at you, I thought of fiery red ants. I wanted you to dig your fingernails into my skin and drain out all my blood. (beginning of "Children of the Sea")

I come from a place where breath, eyes, and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like a hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to. (p234)

'It is the calm and silent waters that drown you...' (p172)

'If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.' (p165)

'...She cannot stay out of duty. The things one does, one should do out of love.' (p155)

"I think it is very good that she has learned to read," I said. "It is her own freedom." (chapter 17 p118)

"...The things one does, one should do out of love." (chapter 17 p118)

That night, I slept hugging my secret. (p112)

"Only good deeds demand respect." (chapter 15, p110)

"Do you see my granddaughter?...Isn't it a miracle that we can visit with all our kin, simply by looking into this face?" (chapter 14, p103)

Tante Atie once said that love is like the rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you're not careful it will drown you. (p91)

A flattened and drying daffodil was dangling off the little card that I had made my aunt Atie for Mother's Day. I pressed my palm over the flower and squashed it against the plain beige cardboard. (first lines)