The Famished Road Quotes
"In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry."
"We feasted much because of the beautiful terrors of eternity."
"We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see."
"To be born is to come into the world weighed down with strange gifts of the soul, with enigmas and an inextinguishable sense of exile."
"It is terrible to forever remain in-between."
"There are many reasons why babies cry when they are born, and one of them is the sudden separation from the world of pure dreams."
"Our unwillingness to stay affected all kinds of balances."
"Life is full of riddles that only the dead can answer."
"The road will never swallow you. The river of your destiny will always overcome evil."
"Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger."
"Success will never confuse you or scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight."
"In one night, I lost my only child and my husband."
"This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down."
"The happier we were, the closer was our birth."
"Everywhere I looked the spirits invaded me with their manifestations."
"The only time men start to sing is when food is ready."
"A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life."
"In a way I came to think of Dad as a cigarette smoked alone in the dark."
"The world is full of riddles that only the dead can answer."
"Powerful people eat very little because they are powerful."
"The only power poor people have is their hunger."
"I saw a mad boy today. They tied him to a chair and his mother was crying."
"I will feed their brains to the wind!" he shouted.
"Patience will kill us. We have to eat and trade."
"If I join the army, your husband will be the first person I will shoot."
"The world is tougher than fire or steel."
"Because of a chicken?" she said, sucking her teeth.
"Madame Koto!" I screamed, with the full volume of my horror.
"The fire blazed. And to my astonishment the soup became calm, as if it had never been boiling."
"‘Don’t ask too many questions, you hear?’"
"‘Politicians!’ she said, and went off to have her usual bath before the evening customers began to arrive."
"Steadily, over days and months, the paths had been widening."
"‘You are a problem to me,’ he said. ‘A problem child. When I think of all the things I could have done – if it wasn’t for you.’"
"The world was changing and I went on wandering as if everything would always be the same."
"Protected from his rage by my fever, I slept that night wracked with bad dreams and road-spirits."
"I hadn’t uttered a sound and Dad was so enraged that he went on thrashing me harder and harder till I ran out of the room, into the compound."
"‘The whole world is sick, but my family is well,’ Dad said, proudly."
"‘He’s not mad,’ said the carrier behind him. ‘He’s poor, that’s all.’"
"The water, pouring down, gradually effaced her, beginning with her raised arm and her grim sword."
"No one paid much attention to anyone else."
"The cry was so piercing that other women instantly gathered around, holding their breasts and agitating the air with their hands."
"I wondered how they managed to comb it in the mornings."
"He kept crying about his neck and his back and he cried all through the carrying but his father wouldn’t let him stop and drove him on with his tongue, saying he must learn to be a man."
"The driver didn’t stand for it and insulted them back and a frightening din of abuse ensued."
"Trouble always happens after celebration."
"The men of the compound talked about politics, about the Party of the Poor."
"I listened intently, for I had begun to understand something of what she meant."
"This Independence has brought only trouble."
"I lay on the mat and didn’t go to school that day."
"The burnt van stayed in the street for a long time."
"I sat on Dad’s chair, watching the door."
"We stayed up, dozing fitfully, till dawn faintly lighted up the sky."
"What will I do if something bad has happened?"
"Maybe what is to come is already driving him mad."
"The night exploded into yellow incandescence."
"The wind blew my answers away and my head hit the hardness of silence and the world went dark."
"I saw beings who dragged clanking chains behind them, bleeding from their necks."
"I listened to the wisdom of the old songs which Dad rendered in his cracked fighting voice."
"I would be lifted out of my body, would find it difficult to get out through the roof."
"I understood something of the inhuman exultation of flight."
"The man with the peculiar weapon repeated his feat."
"The antagonists attempted a last desperate rally."
"The energies that went into fighting back exhausted the street."
"The street seemed darker than usual at night."
"In my childhood hour of darkness, I listened to tales of inscrutable heroes."
"Dad exploded and banged his fist on the centre table."
"Mum was silent, deep in her solitude, and her face was impassive."
"The street gathered outside his room to give him a hero’s welcome."
"The nightsoil man staggered and wobbled under the heavy weight."
"The room seemed cramped and Dad made it worse by shutting the door."
"His neck seemed stiff. He somehow gave the feeling that he had lost the connection between what he saw and what he understood."
"Moths, midges, and flying ants came in, and mosquitoes whined in the silence."
"We sat without moving, without speaking, till one of the moths got its wings burnt and extinguished the candle."
"The wind was cool; it smelt of trees and the night, of bushes and aromatic herbs scenting the air."
"His face was so strange I was sure he was feeling much more than he was able to express."
"She was as fat as ever, plump as a mighty fruit."
"I sat on the stool. There was only the froth of soup which had spilled over where the girl’s head had been."
"Madame Koto appeared out of the air, startling me."
"The darkness awakened the sounds of the forest."
"Cars will ride on you, cows will shit on you, people will perform sacrifices on your face."
"I ran into the bar and hid behind the earthenware pot."
"He looked like a man undergoing a terrible martyrdom."
"His eyes were narrowed as if they were endlessly trying to exclude most of what they saw."
"The pain left my ankle for a moment and I went, limping, into the bar."
"She sat alone in her bar, surrounded by confusion and night-flies."
"I will tell you the story of how Death was conquered."
"The wind blew through the passage, lifting dust into my eyes."
"The world was a Calvary of rats, a battleground of them."
"The world is full of evil. Repent! Or in your darkness you will be driven out."
"One day, by a quiet miracle, God will erase the wicked from the face of the earth."
"The wind cleared the air of our area’s desolation."
"We waited all night for Dad to return. It seemed our lives kept turning on the same axis of anguish."
"Beauty will rule the world. Justice will rule the world."
"They forgot that we are all brothers and sisters and that black people are the ancestors of the human race."
"The wind blew over us, bringing dust, discarded newspapers, and the certainty of rain."
"The rain poured on us and we didn’t notice. The forest was one watery darkness."
"When people fight you, toughen up, study them, wait for the right time, and then fight them back. Fight them like a madman, like a wizard. Then they will respect you."
"If a spirit calls you, don’t go, you hear? Think of us. Think of your father who suffers every day to feed us. And think of me who carried you in my womb for more than nine months and who walks all the streets because of you."
"We are the miracles that God made to taste the bitter fruits of time. We are precious, and one day our suffering will turn into wonders of the earth."
"I am beginning to see things for the first time. This world is not what it seems. There are mysterious forces everywhere. We are living in a world of riddles."