Say You're One Of Them Quotes
"It was as if we were keeping a vigil of her last night with us."
"We struggled to stuff the food into our mouths, to stuff the bags back inside the shack, but the kids made off with the balloons and the cards."
"The water that could take us abroad frothed gray and wild, resisting the sun's gold brushes."
"We didn’t understand what they were talking about. But this didn’t worry us."
"We could tell that Big Guy was disappointed. He pursed his lips so hard that we saw a bit of the red of his nostrils, embers of the anger he was fighting to control."
"Tonight, he tested the lock's strength, putting his left shoulder on the bar and carefully applying his weight."
"That night Fofo didn’t tell us stories about which he laughed louder than we did."
"The excitement of that night was such that when we finally descended on the Abakaliki rice and stew of onions, kpomo, and palm oil, we didn’t mind if we found little pebbles in the rice."
"I shall sleep inside, then," my sister said, bowing her head to her chest and looking sad. "With Nanfang."
"Witout education, you children, comme moi, go just rot for dis town, where danger full everywhere."
"If you tell a good good lie, you no go enter hell. Only de bad lies go put you for hell, mes enfants."
"My people, my neighbors, honton se lé, family se, dis de day de Lord has made …"
"The Lord will bless someone today. It could be me. It could be you. It could be someone by your side."
"Poverty is a curse from Satan… . The Lord is ready to break that curse. Do you believe?"
"Use your head well… . Big Guy done become my trusted friend—de only person I invite sit wid us for our Tanksgiving, remember?"
"That night, the bike followed me into the land of my dreams. I rejected Suzuki, Honda, and Kawasaki and chose a Nanfang and became rich forever."
"With all they had already done for us, calling them Mama and Papa wasn’t too much to ask."
"You can have whatever you want … Everything is for you, sweetie."
"No matter how rich you be for dat place, no forget me o."
"You two should be given the best education possible in this world!"
"Children are like that. They'll get along eventually."
"Sometimes, de vessel to Gabon hot pass dis place … just manage."
"Even de Israelites, chosen people, suffer for desert, and de lazy ones dey suffer snakebites."
"Let’s not argue with him, so he won’t be mad at us."
"Though he had worked very hard all afternoon, he only succeeded in making gaping holes near the roof. They were many and ugly, rough and dreadful, like an unfinished haircut."
"Be careful, bad people dey mess wid other people's children!"
"I no fit sell you and Yewa to anybody, like the slaves of the Badagry slave-trade tales."
"We had directed our anger toward Fofo and Big Guy only. And, though the pieces of the puzzle were coming together, I had refused to accept that the man and woman who were so nice to us and gave us an unforgettable buffet were bad people."
"It was the first time in my life I didn't know where Yewa was, and I felt lost without her."
"My desire now was to please this man, and that Fofo would get well."
"As bad as the digging was, I wished it could have lasted forever, to delay Fofo’s interment."
"I decided then that I would rather die than go to Gabon. I thought it would be better to be killed by Big Guy than to be sold over Fofo’s dead body."
"But memories of the sound of earth falling on Fofo flooded me, bringing tears to my eyes."
"I tried to smile when they laughed, but when I imagined Big Guy’s short laugh, I fought the tears."
"It was important that I keep my composure; it was important that I court the guard’s sympathy."
"I just needed to manage my excitement until then."
"That night, when Yewa’s and the guard’s breathing had steadied in sleep, I got up and sneaked toward the back door."
"I ran into the bush, blades of elephant grass slashing my body, thorns and rough earth piercing my feet."
"The world was only big enough for the two of you, and your secret language was an endless giggle."
"You were sure she would not come onto the balcony. But you kept vigil because you wanted to see if Hadiya would visit her."
"You smiled because you had discovered a new language."
"Argue not with the People of the Book unless it be in a better way, except with such of them as do wrong; and say: 'We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you; our God and your God is One, and to God do we surrender.'"
"Let no one say Muslim or Islam again on this bus. We have suffered too much already at the hands of Muslims."
"He listened to the chatter around him as one might a fairy tale, both hopeful and afraid of the awesome possibilities."
"Like his multireligious, multiethnic country, Jubril's life story was more complicated than what one tribe or religion could claim."
"The advice of Mallam Abdullahi, the man who gave Jubril the medal, flashed across his mind: Don't feel too bad wearing the medal, as Maryam in the Koran was the mother of Prophet Isa, Jesus."
"In tears, his mother had turned to Jubril, pleading with him not to have anything to do with his brother's blood."
"When the pictures steadied a bit, you could see the people who had been displaced. They sat everywhere, in the fields, on the verandas, and some were still running into the barracks."
"The newspapers say the most decorated soldiers have all their children in universities in Europe and America, while the commoner’s child is stuck in our rotten universities."
"We must show this to the world. Remember, nobody has a monopoly on violence. So don’t go around trying to terrorize the Christians."
"As the prayers filled Jubril’s ears in the dark, he tried to forget the stones falling on Yusuf. He tried to forget how Yusuf screamed the names of his uncles and neighbors and pleaded with them to spare him."
"The complexity of their survival pierced his soul with a stunning insight: every life counted in Allah’s plan."
"Even if things worked out with his father, Jubril decided, he must return to Khamfi to find his mother and Mallam Abdullahi, within whose house Allah had planned Jubril’s miraculous escape."
"He felt better. Imagining what ECOMOG could do felt a bit like the comfort of a return ticket in his back pocket, though he had none."
"Whether you have a ticket or not is beside the point now… As a royal father, the safety of my people is paramount."
"The gods of our ancestors will not allow jou, Nduese, to die!"
"To dignity … conscience!" the soldier replied.
"You must come with me then, if you want to meet our Father!"
"We’re not safe with his mad juju… . We must vote him out of this bus, since we’re in a democracy."
"As I was saying, my people, we’re not safe with his mad juju… . We must vote him out of this bus, since we’re in a democracy."
"My people, these days we need the hottest kind of Spirit,"
"The kind that possessed Emeka … to cleanse this country."
"If you do not accept me and my plans to embrace my southern identity and lead me safely home, who will?"
"If this were my great-grandfather’s days, he would have given all these hopeless delta youth to the white people, free… ."
"God, make you no permit soldiers intercept our bus o!"