“Was that the beginning, that evening—on the dock of Avilion, with the fireworks dazzling the sky? It's hard to know. Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring.”
― The Blind Assassin
― The Blind Assassin
“When you dance with the Africans, unless it is a ritual dance like a wedding or harvest or rain dance, there’s no right or wrong way to dance. There’s only movement. And the more you express your feelings as you move, the better you feel when you’re done…When I dance the African Way, I show my feelings with my body instead of hiding them in my heart. When I dance, I know I’m alive here and now. My body and soul are in harmony.”
― Africa's Child
― Africa's Child
“Money and titles may be hereditary," she would say, "but brains are not,"...”
― The Scarlet Pimpernel
― The Scarlet Pimpernel
“I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear, I'll try it. I had as well die with ague as the fever, I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave.”
― Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
― Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
“Bodies’, she said. ‘Lots of them’. She glanced over her shoulder to where Sally was hidden, then back to Nathan, and whispered. ‘Small ones’.”
― When the children come
― When the children come
Basil’s 2024 Year in Books
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