Edwidge Danticat > Quotes

“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.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“No, women like you don't write. They carve onion sculptures and potato statues. They sit in dark corners and braid their hair in new shapes and twists in order to control the stiffness, the unruliness, the rebelliousness.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!

“Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.”
― Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones

“Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.”
― Edwidge Danticat

“It's not easy to start over in a new place,' he said. 'Exile is not for everyone. Someone has to stay behind, to receive the letters and greet family members when they come back.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I'm Dying

“When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.”
― Edwidge Danticat

“Their Maker, she said, gives them the sky to carry because they are strong. These people do not know who they are, but if you see a lot of trouble in your life, it is because you were chosen to carry part of the sky on your head. -pg. 25”
― Edwidge Danticat

“She told me about a group of people in Guinea who carry the sky on their heads. They are the people of Creation. Strong, tall, and mighty people who can bear anything. Their Maker, she said, gives them the sky to carry because they are strong. These people do not know who they are, but if you see a lot of trouble in your life, it is because you were chosen to carry part of the sky on your head.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“There is always a place where, if you listen closely in the night, you will hear a mother telling a story and at the end of the tale, she will ask you this question: 'Ou libéré?' Are you free, my daughter?"

My grandmother quickly pressed her fingers over my lips.

Now," she said, "you will know how to answer.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“...women, brave as stars at dawn”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“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.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!

“Life was neither something you defended by hiding nor surrendered calmly on other people's terms, but something you lived bravely, out in the open, and that if you had to lose it, you should lose it on your own terms.”
― Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breaker

“People are just too hopeful, and sometimes hope is the biggest weapon of all to use against us. People will believe anything.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!

“The girl she said, I didn’t tell you this because it was a small thing, but little girls, they leave their hearts at home when they walk outside. Hearts are so precious. They don’t want to lose them.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“These were our bedtime stories. Tales that haunted our parents and made them laugh at the same time. We never understood them until we were fully grown and they became our sole inheritance.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!

“When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women of your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!

“I want to look happily forward. I want to be optimistic. I want to have a dream. I want to live in jubilee. I want my daughters to feel that they have the power to at least try to change things, even in a world that resists change with more strength than they have. I want to tell them they can overcome everything, if the are courageous, resilient and brave. Paradoxically, I also want to tell them their crowns have already been bought and paid for and that all they have to do is put them on their heads. But the world keeps tripping me up. My certainty keeps flailing.”
― Edwidge Danticat, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race

“No one will love you more than you love your pain.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Claire of the Sea Light

“It is the calm and silent waters that drown you.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“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.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!

“So much had fallen into the sea. Hats fell in to the sea. Hearts fell into the sea. So much had fallen into the sea”
― Edwidge Danticat, Claire of the Sea Light

“Anger is a wasted emotion.”
― Edwidge Danticat

“I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when it’s at its extreme. And that’s what they end up knowing about it.”
― Edwidge Danticat

“The women in your family have never lost touch with one another. Death is a path we take to meet on the other side.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!

“We are not meant to be in this country. We did not want to come. We were forced to flee or die. Americans perceive desperate brown masses swarming at their golden shores, wildly inventing claims of persecution for the opportunity to flourish in this prosperous land. The view from beneath the bridge is somewhat different: reluctant refugees with an aching love of their forsaken homeland, of a homeland that has forsaken them, refugees who desire nothing more than to be home again.”
― Edwidge Danticat

“They are the people of creation. Their maker…gives them the sky to carry because they are so strong. These people do not know who they are, but if you see a lot of trouble in your life, it is because you were chosen to carry part of the sky on your head.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“They say behind mountains are more mountains.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!

“I wish I could've done more for her, but some sorrows were simply too individual to share.”
― Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones

“Old age is not meant to be survived alone," Man Rapadou said, her voice trailing with her own hidden thoughts. "Death should come gently, slowly, like a man's hand approaching your body. There can be joy in impatience if there is time to find the joy.”
― Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones