Edwidge Danticat

All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love...like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too. ("Children of the Sea")

They say the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. I have never been given very much. What was there to take away? ("Children of the Sea")

'Freedom is a passing thing,' a man said. 'Someone can always come and snatch it away.' (p212)

A flattened and drying daffodil was dangling off the little card that I had made my aunt Atie for Mother's Day. I pressed my palm over the flower and squashed it against the plain beige cardboard. (first lines)

“Old age is not meant to be survived alone," Man Rapadou said, her voice trailing with her own hidden thoughts. "Death should come gently, slowly, like a man's hand approaching your body. There can be joy in impatience if there is time to find the joy.” (p276)

I once heard an elder say that the dead who have no use for their words leave them as part of their children's inheritance. Proverbs, teeth suckings, obscenities, even grunts and moans once inserted in special places during conversations, all are passed along to the next heir. (p265)

'If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.' (p165)

That night, I slept hugging my secret. (p112)

"Only good deeds demand respect." (chapter 15, p110)