Ollie Labine

“I will not descend among professors and capitalists.

”
― Walt Whitman

“Look,” said Armstrong, “was the experience so terrible for you? Here you are, a picture of health, comfortable clothes, food in your belly, with a roof over your head and abolitionists fending for you in Freetown. Most of the world doesn’t live that well.”
― Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name

“Mary Anning and I are hunting fossils on the beach, she her creatures, I my fish. Our eyes are fastened to the sand and rocks as we make our way along the shore at different paces, first one in front, then the other. Mary stops to split open a nodule and find what may be lodged within. I dig through clay, searching for something new and miraculous. We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.”
― Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures

“A newcomer, a tall bewhiskered Sikh policeman came to see me. ‘Sahib,’ he said in Hindustani, ‘I was lucky to escape from Rangoon when that city was evacuated. I reached Mandalay after many nights hiding and sleeping in the jungle. How I escaped with my life I do not know. From Mandalay I managed to get on a train and eventually found my way here.’ He came a little closer and almost whispered, ‘Sahib, I am staying in the Police Lines. You must let me and my pal guard your bungalow or….’ And he drew his finger
across his throat. ‘Believe me I have seen many tragedies during the past few weeks.’ I smiled, thanked him and said I would send for him and his pal should I find it necessary. I had many native friends who I knew would be helpful and kind to refugees and I regarded the policeman’s tale as greatly exaggerated. The next day this good man joined the stream of refugees hastening to the frontier
of India … Captain Gribble”
― Elizabeth Tebby Germaine, EXTRAORDINARY TRUE STORIES OF SURVIVAL IN BURMA WW2: tens of thousands fled to India from the Japanese Invasion in 1942