Véronique Tadjo > Quotes

“Oui, se souvenir. Témoigner. C'est ce qui nous reste pour combattre le passé et restaurer notre humanité.”
― Véronique Tadjo, The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda

“I think of my country, far away, and my eyes open beyond space.”
― Veronique Tadjo, As the Crow Flies

“Here there are no griots, only poets. You think that you are leading an extraordinary life and that people see you as you would like them to. You adorn yourself with your writing. It becomes your identity, your bread and butter, and your reason for living. You begin to believe in what people say. You become locked up in your creation, become submerged in words, and sentences suffocate you in the solitude of your retreat. They make you forget the blood and the dust.”
― Véronique Tadjo, As the Crow Flies

“Indeed, I too would have loved to write one of those serene stories with a beginning and an end. But as you know only too well, it is never like that. Lives mingle, people tame one another and part. Destinies are lost.”
― Véronique Tadjo

“If you want to love ​

Do so ​

To the ends of the earth​

With no shortcuts ​

Do so​

As the crow flies.​

Veronique Tadjo, As the crow flies​”
― Veronique Tadjo, As the Crow Flies

“You should listen to those whose voices remain unheard although the wisdom they carry is shaped by their closeness to the earth. No refined language but the pace of life at a gallop refashioned outmoded images, well-worn phrases, and ways of thinking that are out of date.”
― Véronique Tadjo, As the Crow Flies

“We must perform cleansing rites. Make the necessary sacrifices. We must replant our huge trees that have been uprooted, replenish our sacred forests that have been decimated.”
― Véronique Tadjo, As the Crow Flies

“The stars, the oceans, planets, and animals are the building blocks of our bodies. The universe doesn't exist outside of us. It's in us. We are the universe. But of all this immeasurable beauty, this unfathomable mystery, what do we have left?”
― Véronique Tadjo

“In the play, I represent the people. My hands are stretched in the form of a cross. Symbolically. The hero is fighting for me. Fighting against the monarch.”
― Véronique Tadjo, As the Crow Flies

“I want to pour libation and summon the gods, undo what has been done, utter sacred words to quell the fires, reduce to cinders promises made.
I want an assembly of diviners and sorcerers to chase away the evil spirits, to recapture the present once more.
I therefore call upon each and every one of you, djinns with hideous faces, juju-makers with terrifying powers. Come from all directions. I want to make peace, escape through my pores, flee through my mouth and return to the earth.
I need the spell that will erase memories.”
― Véronique Tadjo, As the Crow Flies