Helon Habila > Quotes

“You must take a year off, one of these days, before you’re old and tired and weighed down by responsibility. Go away somewhere, and read. Read all the important books. Educate yourself, then you’ll see the world in a different way.”
― Helon Habila, Oil on Water

“So your question, are we happy here? I say how can we be happy when we are mere wanderers without a home?”
― Helon Habila, Oil on Water

“There is no loneliness like the loneliness of a stranger in a strange city.”
― Helon Habila, Travelers

“Nostalgia settled on my shoulders like the arm of a long-lost friend, urging me to look back and listen; it had been years since I heard such morning sounds, such silence.”
― Helon Habila, Oil on Water

“Surprisingly, I felt no anger towards him. He was just Man. Man in his basic, rudimentary state, easily moved by powerful emotions like love, lust, anger, greed, and fear, but totally dumb to the finer, acquired emotions like pity, mercy, humour, and justice.”
― Helon Habila

“And I too am not myself, hoping for refuge in a metaphor that will contain it all.”
― Helon Habila, The Granta Book of the African Short Story

“Not all of us have that luxury, of a past. My history doesn't offer me much in that respect.”
― Helon Habila, Travelers

“I wanted to say, with as much sarcasm as I could put into my voice, "Sir, your poem is both original and interesting, but the part that is interesting is not original, and the part that is original is not interesting." But all I said was, "Not bad, you need to work on it some more.”
― Helon Habila

“Family is worth clinging to wherever one can find it.”
― Helon Habila, Oil on Water

“This was soul calling to soul. A tired, trapped lock at last meeting the key that unlocks it.”
― Helon Habila, Waiting for an Angel

“-I've seen children snatched away from their mothers, never to be reunited. I've seen husbands taken from their wives and kids and sent away to prison. I've seen grown men flogged by soldiers in front of their kids. That's how history is made, and it's our job to witness it.
- And is it always like this?
- No, not always. I've also witnessed ordinary bystanders pull passengers from burning cars, I've seen judges sentence generals and politicians to hard labour, without fear. I've seen students stand up to soldiers and policemen, protesting against injustice. If you're patient, you'll see those moments too, and you'll write about them.”
― Helon Habila, Oil on Water

“Our story is over, the ink has dried, each of us must move on now and it will be as if we had never met, never loved, and never dreamt together.”
― Helon Habila, Travelers

“Happiness is important, but I wouldn't say it is the main purpose of human existence.”
― Helon Habila, Travelers

“Life is seen as an ongoing war between art and philistinism - and although the philistines may win some of the battles, it is literature that always wins the war.”
― Helon Habila

“I didn't love him. He was a good, decent guy, but I wanted more at that time." She shrugged. "I was not so young anymore. Time was passing for me. I wanted more… excitement.”
― Helon Habila, Travelers

“Can you continue to love a person regardless of such shortcomings? Maybe because you hope to save them? Or because you can't help it? Isn't that what love is all about?”
― Helon Habila, Oil on Water

“Our job is to find out the truth, even if it is buried deep in the earth.”
― Helon Habila, Oil on Water

“The people copy their rules, just as children ape their parents. Violence is a symptom of a dysfunctional system, where people have no patience for or confidence in due process. The poor don't believe they can get justice from the courts, because usually they can't; the elite know the system is rigged because they rigged it. The ones at the top keep the door shut because they don't want to share the spoils of office. Actual violence, or the thread of it, helps to keep the populace in check, just as poverty does.”
― Helon Habila, The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria

“The further from home you wander, the closer you get to Siberia.”
― Helon Habila, Oil on Water

“Sometimes poets have to be imperfect so their poetry can be perfect.”
― Helon Habila, Travelers