Bessie Head > Quotes

“I once sat down on a bench at Cape Town railway station where the notice "Whites Only" was obscured. A few moments later a white man approached and shouted: 'Get off!' It never occurred to him that he was achieving the opposite of his dreams of superiority and had become a living object of contempt, that human beings, when they are human, dare not conduct themselves in such ways.”
― Bessie Head, A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings

“The contradictions were apparent to Makhaya, and perhaps there was no greater crime as yet than all the lies Western civilization had told in the name of Jesus Christ. It seemed to Makhaya far preferable for Africa if it did without Christianity and Christian double-talk, fat priests, golden images, and looked around at all the thin naked old men who sat under trees weaving baskets with shaking hands. People could do without religions and Gods who died for the sins of the world and thereby left men without any feeling of self-responsibility for the crimes they committed. This seemed to Makhaya the greatest irony of Christianity. It meant that a white man could forever go on slaughtering black men simply because Jesus Christ would save him from his sins. Africa could do without a religion like that. 135”
― Bessie Head, When Rain Clouds Gather

“Life is such a gentle, treasured thing. I learn about it every minute. I think about it so deeply.”
― Bessie Head, A Question of Power

“It seemed to be a makeshift replacement for love, absenting oneself from stifling atmospheres, because love basically was a torrential storm of feeling; it thrived only in partnership with laughing generosity and truthfulness.”
― Bessie Head, A Question of Power

“That is, adoration was patient and waiting while love or, if you liked, plain sexual passion banged everything about. It either shouted or thought it knew too much, and it had always left him cold and had not involved his heart. Therefore, if he wanted to get involved now it would be on his own terms and at his own pace.”
― Bessie Head, When Rain Clouds Gather

“The rhythm of sunrise, the rhythm of sunset, filled her life.”
― Bessie Head, Maru

“Dikeledi could make no secret of the fact that, in relation to men, she often suffered from high blood pressure, except that the trouble with the bloodstream had eventually boiled down to one, unattainable man.”
― Bessie Head

“once you make yourself a freak and special any bastard starts to use you. That's half of the fierce fight in Africa'

— Elizabeth”
― Bessie Head, A Question of Power

“When no one wanted to bury a dead body, they called the missionaries; not that the missionaries really liked to be involved with mankind, but that they had been known to go into queer places because of their occupation. They would do that but they did not often like you to walk into their yard. They preferred to talk to you outside the fence.”
― Bessie Head, Maru

“There was something Dikeledi called sham. It made people believe they were more important than the normal image of humankind. She had grown up surrounded by sham.”
― Bessie Head, Maru

“The man who slowly walked away from them was a king in their society. A day had come when he had decided that he did not need any kingship other than the kind of wife everybody would loathe from the bottom of their hearts.”
― Bessie Head, Maru

“The wind of freedom, which was blowing throughout the world for all people, turned and flowed into the room. As they breathed in the fresh, clear air their humanity awakened. They examined their condition. There was the foetid air, the excreta and the horror of being an oddity of the human race, with half the head of a man and half the body of a donkey. They laughed in an embarrassed way, scratching their heads. How had they fallen into this condition when, indeed, they were as human as everyone else? They started to run out into the sunlight, then they turned and looked at the dark, small room. They said: "We are not going back there.”
― Bessie Head

“At such times he would think, 'What will I do if she does not love me as much as I love her?' A terrible reply came from his heart, 'Kill her.”
― Bessie Head, Maru

“The whole village was involved. There was no longer buzz, buzz, buzz. Something they liked as Africans to pretend themselves incapable of-- being oppressive and prejudiced-- was being exposed. They always knew it was there but no oppressor believes in his oppression.”
― Bessie Head

“At such times he would think, "What will I do if she does not love me as much as I love her?" A terrible reply came from his heart, 'Kill her.”
― Bessie Head, Maru

“Before the white man became universally disliked for his mental outlook, it was there. The white man found only too many people who looked different. That was all that outraged the receivers of his discrimination, that he applied the technique of the wild jiggling dance and the rattling tin cans to anyone who was not a white man.”
― Bessie Head, Maru

“Maybe he concentrated on his immediate situation. It was African. It was horrible. But wherever mankind had gathered itself into a social order, the same things were happening. There was a mass of people with no humnaity to whom another mass referred: Why, they are naturally like that. They like to live in such filth. They have been doing it for centuries”
― Bessie Head