Nervous Conditions Quotes
"I feel many things these days, much more than I was able to feel in the days when I was young and my brother died."
"Therefore I shall not apologise but begin by recalling the facts as I remember them."
"My story is not after all about death, but about my escape and Lucia’s."
"The women smelt of unhealthy reproductive odours, the children were inclined to relieve their upset bowels on the floor, and the men gave off strong aromas of productive labour."
"He did not like sharing the vehicle with various kinds of produce in suspicious stages of freshness."
"The road wound down by the fields where there were always some people with whom to pass ten minutes of the day."
"The river, the trees, the fruit and the fields. This was how it was in the beginning."
"We could play where we pleased. But the women had their own spot for bathing and the men their own too."
"The authorities became alarmed. Seeing how enterprising our community had been, they rewarded us for our efforts by building us a beer-hall."
"The money, the money, no thought for the method."
"Maiguru was educated, and did she serve Babamukuru books for dinner?"
"I understood that selling vegetables was not a lucrative business."
"My father thought I should not mind. ‘Is that anything to worry about? Ha-a-a, it’s nothing,’ he reassured me."
"My mother was too old to be disturbed by my childish nonsense."
"It was a fine feeling. A fine crop. All that remained was to wait for the harvest."
"The only times that he would expend any energy to help around the homestead were the times when Babamukuru sent word that he was coming to visit."
"His strategy was perfect. He never returned to the homestead, no matter how tedious and heavy the tasks at hand, until Babamukuru, having arrived home and found it deserted, drove down to the fields."
"My father was greatly tickled by this. He annoyed me tremendously by laughing and laughing in an unpleasantly adult way."
"It was a thoughtless threat: how could he have done that? Not having the power, he left me alone. We co-existed in peaceful detachment."
"So deep was my disappointment that I was not comforted when Nhamo, seduced by our unrestrained voices and the throb of the drum, came out to join us."
"It was difficult though. I had been looking forward to having my cousins back so that things would be fun and friendly and warm as they had been in the old days, but it was not happening that way."
"When there is a duty to do, it has to be done, that is all."
"I read that letter very many times. That letter made me see that even more than myself my whole family needed my qualification."
"He carried with him an aura from which emanated wisdom and foresight."
"I have never seen a child who loves his books the way he does, that Nhamo of ours."
"A child must also be provided with the correct atmosphere which will encourage his mind to develop even when he is not in the classroom."
"They remained cloistered together in my parents’ room in the house for an hour, and this was only possible because most of the guests, living nearby and so being able to pop in at any time, had departed."
"I was in danger of becoming an angel, or at the very least a saint, and forgetting how ordinary humans existed — from minute to minute and from hand to mouth."
"My parents thought she was a miserable child. They made no secret of saying so when Babamukuru and Maiguru had returned to the mission."
"I have met so many men who consider themselves responsible adults and therefore ought to know better, who still subscribe to the fundamental principles of my brother’s budding elitism."
"Babamukuru, I knew, was different. He hadn’t cringed under the weight of his poverty. Boldly, Babamukuru had defied it. Through hard work and determination, he had broken the evil wizards’ spell."
"When you have a lot of anything it makes you feel good to give a bit of it away."
"It was relief, but more than that. It was more than excitement and anticipation. What I experienced that day was a short cut, a rerouting of everything I had ever defined as me into fast lanes that would speedily lead me to my destination."
"‘Do you see the kind of books your daughter is reading?’ Maiguru asked my uncle, taking Nyasha’s copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover from the dresser and showing it to him."
"I told myself that I had been making a fuss about nothing, sternly pointed out to myself that I had been doing it all afternoon: the dogs, the bell, Nyasha’s cigarette — everything had made me jump."
"Even Anna’s metamorphosis had been unnerving when I should simply have talked normally to her and have put a stop to it."
"He was a rigid, imposing perfectionist, steely enough in character to function in the puritanical way that he expected, or rather insisted, that the rest of the world should function."
"He was always addressing, expounding, impressing points upon people."
"Nyasha climbed out of bed, advising me to make an effort to stop being a peasant."
"She switched the light off and climbed back into bed. Typically she had the last word: ‘You haven’t put your bedclothes on. You’ll have to do it in the dark.’"
"She was perceptive. I had admired this about her when we talked earlier that evening, but now it annoyed me, made me feel silly."
"I decided she expected too much of people so I kept quiet."
"I was glad she had introduced me to them. There was a problem though: tampons were expensive."
"It was not so simple, because she had been married by my Babamukuru, which defined her situation as good."
"He didn’t make half as much fuss when we got married."
"You have been having too much of the good life."
"I am the head of this house. Anyone who defies my authority is an evil thing in this house, bent on destroying what I have made."
"It was the obligation of all decent people in positions like Babamukuru’s to do such things."
"If you do not go to the wedding, you are saying you no longer want to live here."
"Those who said relatives are hands were not lying."
"I am spoiling her here. She knows she is in my house not because of herself but because of my kindness and generosity."
"I suppose you would punish yourself. Really, Tambu, I believe you would."
"You grow and you compensate. You have to. There’s no other way."
"It’s difficult when everything’s laid out for you. It’s difficult when everything’s taken care of."
"Imagine all that fuss over a plateful of food. But it’s more than that really, more than just food."
"Look what they’ve done to us. I’m not one of them but I’m not one of you."
"They’ve deprived you of you, him of him, ourselves of each other."
"I won’t grovel. Oh no, I won’t. I’m not a good girl. I won’t be trapped."
"It’s the Englishness. It’ll kill them all if they aren’t careful."
"I had been too eager to leave the homestead and embrace the ‘Englishness’ of the mission."
"Quietly, unobtrusively and extremely fitfully, something in my mind began to assert itself, to question things and refuse to be brainwashed."