Aissatou

“I had a sister named Inertia,"said Metusine. "Died. Ill from the day she was born. Mother thought if she named her that it would keep her alive. Keep her in motion.”
― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts

“A scientist, Aster had learned something GIselle had not: decoding the past was like decoding the physical world. The best that could be hoped for was a working model. A reasonable approximation. That was to say, no matter what Aster learned of Lune, there was no piecing together the full mystery of her life. There was no hearing her laugh or feeling her embrace. A ghost is not a person. (147)”
― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts

“Aster didn't mean it. As much as it frustrated her, she understood the logic of Giselle's psychosis. Everything dies, so exert control by burning it away yourself. Everything will be born again anyway. There's no such thing as creation, merely a shuffling of parts. All birth is rebirth in disguise. (63)”
― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts

“Each profession, intellectual or manual, deserves consideration, whether it requires painful physical effort or manual dexterity, wide knowledge or or the patience of an ant.”
― Mariama Bâ, So Long a Letter