Moses Ose Utomi > Quotes

“Tears are precious, his mama always said. Don't waste them on your enemies. Save them for your friends.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“It had been so long since he'd had the freedom to cry. That's what crying was—freedom. You could cry when there were no more urgent responsibilities. Only when there was no one watching you who depended on your strength. Only when the people around you wouldn't take advantage of your tears.
Only when you had enough water in your body.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“In exchange for water, the Ajungo demanded the tongues of every citizen of the City of Lies. It was a twofold price, a price of blood and a price of history: an untongued people cannot tell their story.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“Go in peace.”

She meant it when she said it. That was why he had refused to go with them, or to allow them to come with him.

He didn’t want peace.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“They knew that all of history was a lie told to instill fear in those whose fearlessness could have rewritten it.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“A man will give ya work and name it a gift.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“You must learn. Only by learning can you free us.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“He buried the bones. Then he said a prayer for the soul of the departed, that it would find water and shade, and that it would be remembered truly.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“Tears are precious, his mama always sadi. Don't waste them on your enemies. Save them for your friends.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“There are no heroes in the City of Lies.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“Trust is the only coin that doubles when spent. Spend generously.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“And the gods answered his prayer.

They said no.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“This cycle of death and oppression does not persist because we fail to learn from it. But because we are each of us monsters born into gardens, and we all fear being thrust into the harshness of the desert.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“Losing sight of another’s humanity was the seed from which all cruelty grew.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“Evil didn’t change. The evil of yesteryear was no different from the evil of today,”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“There is a loneliness that comes from being alone; there is a loneliness that comes from being with others.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“Only by learning can you free us.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“A man will give ya work and name it a gift”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“From the study of what was," he said, "comes the knowledge of what is.”
― moses ose utomi

“Even deserts have a beginning. Even gardens have an end. Even water has a story.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“By then, the Aleke was well practiced in accusing his own people of treachery.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“it was the rules that needed to change, not him.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Truth of the Aleke

“evil in one place is an evil in every place.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Lies of the Ajungo

“I am already sworn to peace.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Truth of the Aleke

“History is only a story, told by those with power to justify why they have it.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Truth of the Aleke

“History was a story with no ending.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“That night, and many after, he prayed for understanding.

And The Ogisi answered his prayer.

With silence.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“Do not fear that you may do wrong. Fear that you may not do right.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Truth of the Aleke

“Agba stiffened before melting into him, yielding, for a moment, some of the weight he carried through the world. Ethike accepted the burden for what it was—a gift. There is no finer gift an adult can receive than a child unburdening their strife.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi

“The cruelty of forgotten transgressions. The cruelty of children absolved of the sins of their parents but never disinherited from their plunder. The cruelty was an evil inscribed into history, so that those who came afterward would know nothing else.”
― Moses Ose Utomi, The Memory of the Ogisi