The Fishermen Quotes
"When the two ventricles of our home—our father and our mother—held silence as the ventricles of the heart retain blood, we could flood the house if we poked them."
"I will start living in Yola from today onwards, and I don’t want you boys to give your mother any troubles."
"What kind of job takes a man away from bringing up his growing sons? Even if I were born with seven hands, how would I be able to care for these children alone?"
"Time meant nothing back then. The days came with clouds hanging in the sky filled with cupfuls of dust in the dry seasons, and the sun lasting into the night."
"We gave little thought to past events. Time meant nothing back then. All that mattered was the present and the foreseeable future."
"You think I would have ceased to exist if something bad had happened to you or if one of you had drowned in that river? I will not cease to live because you chose to harm yourselves."
"The mighty bird that planted his nest high above the rest of his peers, hovering and watching over his young eagles, the way a king guards his throne."
"No one enjoys whipping his kids—no one."
"Good boys, listen, in keeping with what I have always taught you, that in every bad thing, you can always dig up some good things."
"Father, do you know why I flogged you the most? Because I’m the first born, their leader."
"When fear takes possession of the heart of a person, it diminishes them."
"You have to be cleansed from every evil spell Abulu has cast on you."
"Men and brethren, before I go ahead with the word of God tonight, let me say that I’ve just been told that the devil, in the form of Abulu, the demon-possessed, self-proclaimed prophet whom all of you know has caused so much damage to people’s lives in this town, has been to the house of our dear brother James Agwu."
"We cannot kill you, Ike, you are strong, and bigger than us all."
"I don’t know, Mama, but I just don’t want to go to any church."
"You will see, all of this will soon end and all of you will be free from me; you will see."
"You keep sleeping with Matthew, your husband’s friend, even in your matrimonial bed? You have no shame! No shame!!"
"The one who stood on the hills and watched, trying to stave off whatever ill she perceived was coming to her children."
"If these men break in, they will recognize we are M.K.O.’s boys, ‘Children of Hope ’93’, enemies, and, we’ll be in greater danger than anyone else."
"Daddy isn’t coming," he said, and put a forefinger across his lips to silence me.
"What are you doing, you fool!" Boja cried. "There’s a riot; they are killing people, let’s go home!"
"His words smashed my resilience into smithereens and frightened me."
"If anything happens to him now," Mother said to the woman, "what will Ikenna say? Will he say that he killed his own brother?"
"You hate me, Boja" Ikenna said with so much power that his face seemed to lighten with relief.
"Every gripping detail of the riot my eyes saw, every smell of it, filled me with a concrete fear of death."
"The destruction of that newspaper shook Boja greatly; he could not eat."
"I’m tired of what Ikenna is doing to me. I’m really tired!" Boja said.
"I knew it, I knew it; I have only been foolish all this while." He shook his head. "That was why you threw my passport into the well."
"By that singular action, he had plundered his own life in one single haul like a cave of ancient riches."
"He must have glimpsed an illusory epiphany, a montage of images of his past."
"The contact dashed the hive and scattered the images."
"Then a peace not of this world must have descended on him, calming him to deadly stillness."
"We all suffered differently, but in the first few weeks after their deaths, Mother emerged as the greatest sufferer."
"Spiders built temporary shelters and nested in our home as the Igbo people believe they do when people mourn."
"The days she was away were difficult. Nkem cried almost perpetually, refusing to be pacified."
"Hatred is a leech: The thing that sticks to a person’s skin; that feeds off them and drains the sap out of one’s spirit."
"Abulu was a leviathan: An undying whale that could not be easily killed by a band of valiant sailors."
"But these were not all; he smelt of immaterial things. He smelt of the broken lives of others, and of the stillness in their souls."
"I said. No. More. Questions!" he barked.
"I have the knife ready. Once we are sure Daddy and Mama are asleep, we will leave through the window."
"I didn’t know… I did it for you, we, Ben and I, we did it for you; both of you."
"What you have done is great. Do not regret it."