Monique Roffey > Quotes

“Later I saw that change came as change always comes, from a chain of events with a long history, too long to see from back to front, till it come.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“Travelling, he'd always thought, was where he'd meet his other self. Somewhere in a foreign place, he would bump into the bit of himself which was lost.”
― Monique Roffey, Sun Dog

“The sea was the giant woman of the planet, fluid and contrary.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“Her sadness had changed her into another woman altogether; it had wearied her and it had also blossomed her.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“Womanhood was a dangerous business if you didn't get it right.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“It was the magic that music makes, the song that lives within every creature on earth, including mermaids.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“I was impatient, troubled by this woman who was so hard to understand. I wanted to keep her safe, or so I told myself, but maybe I fool myself too; maybe 'keep' was the problem. ... Man, you need to give deep feelings of affection and care, not keep them.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“That's what a poem is. Words which have a hidden meaning. A poem is like a secret.”
― Monique Roffey, Archipelago

“He had a strange relationship with books. He had the notion that people who wrote novels were also lonely. He believed this more and more, reading between the lines of the novels he'd loved. Most books were about one kind of loneliness or another, about people who couldn't get what they wanted, people who found things hard, who were slow, or sad, or difficult. So he read most evenings, finding a comfort in following words written by someone like him.”
― Monique Roffey, Sun Dog

“The sea, that expanse of nothingness, could reflect a man back on himself. It had that effect. It was so endless and it moved around underneath the boat. It wasn’t the same thing at all as being on any expanse of earth. The sea shifted. The sea could swallow the boat whole. The sea was the giant woman of the planet, fluid and contrary. All the men shuddered as they gazed at her surface.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“History or love. One must win. I cannot fight history. I cannot. You win. I’m bad. I always will be. But we can do better than letting history win out over love.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“George liked it so, that this island was uncompromising and hard for tourists to negotiate. Not all welcome smiles and black men in Hawaiian shirts, playing pan by the poolside. No flat, crystal beaches, no boutique hotels. Trinidad was oil-rich, didn't need tourism. Trinidadians openly sniggered at the sunburnt American women who wandered down the pavement in shorts and bikini top. Trinidad was itself; take it or leave it.”
― Monique Roffey, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

“HOW HE LOVED THIS CITY. PORT OF SPAIN. POOR BLIND-DEAF CITY. IT SPANNED BACK, IN A GRID, FROM A BUSY PORT AND DOCK; WORN OUT NOW, RUINED AND RUINOUS AND SUFFERING, ALWAYS SUFFERING... PARTS OF THE CITY STILL RENEWED THEMSELVES, RISING UP AGAINST THE ODDS.”
― monique roffey, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

“I badder than she when I ready.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“Each man felt a deep tug in his crotch. The old man wanted to take out his dick and piss all over her.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“The younger men fought hard to keep a cockstand from bouncing up in their pants.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“This was the way of a small place full of interwoven families. From birth, people developed the necessary social skill of being duplicitous. Be polite and mind yer own business. Never say true things if it didn't help matters; in fact, the truth often made matters worse. The present was complicated enough. And history? Well that had been the tragedy that lay behind it all. The truth was often way too painful; it would end in talk of heinous crime. So no one bothered to speak of it.”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“Life change quick boy. Another planet so. Later I saw that change came as change always comes, from a chain of events with a long history, too long to see from back to front, till it come”
― Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

“I knew I was missing out, missing this: the thrum of population, out here, in the street. I sailed by, a white ghost in their midst.”
― Monique Roffey, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle