Quotes from Bernardine Evaristo

She came home from work to the noise of fellow youngsters having fun through the partition walls Exacerbating her aloneness Yet she knew this was exactly what she needed Solititude To register what she was feeling Forcing herself to become deaf to all sound except her own

Better than those mobile phones the young ones check hundreds of times a day which makes them go mental She's read about it in the paper Besides, why replace her old phone when it's still in good working order, sits on the console by the front door, attached to a wire that's attached to a socket Telephone conversations should be kept short and had standing Far as she's concerned

It's only in the past ten years it's been reclaimed by nature, an aggressive beast consuming everything when you let it rampage unhindered

an explainer of my own unique journey

except unlike you I don't have any disturbing psychological problems, Dom that's because you haven't dug deep enough to find them

in that moment all the painful history of four hundred years of slavery entered my body in a way it hadn't before and I broke down and sobbed, Dominique, I sobbed and realized more than ever that the white man has a lot to answer for

Amma experienced commitment to one person as imprisonment, she hadn't left home for a life of freedom and adventure to end up chained to another person's desires

she misses the people they used to be, when they were all discovering themselves with no idea how much they might change in the years to come

I am an individual, specific, not generic.

we have to be more than teachers, we have to look after them, believe in them if we don't help them, who will

the best films are about expanding our understanding of what it means to be human, they're a journey into pushing the boundaries of form, an adventure beyond the clichés of commercial cinema, an expression of our deeper consciousness

Courtney replied that she herself is a big fan of the non sequitur which really only means that a conversation is free-flowing and intuitive, as opposed to following a predictable trajectory, so to speak

i've become the High Priestess of Career Longevity in the Chapel of Social Change preaching from the Pulpit of Political Invisibility the Congregation of the Marginalized and Already Converted

who loves to immerse herself in a universe where fiscal cells split off to create gazillions of replicas of themselves spinning off into beautiful infinity the glittering stars of wealth that make the world go around

Truth is, both of us was desperate to be anything other than what we was.

bugs me are the trans troublemakers, you should have seen the stick I got when I announced my festival was for women-born-women as opposed to women-born-men, I was accused of being transphobic, which I'm not, I'm absolutely not, I have trans friends, but there is a difference, a man raised as a man might not feel like one but he's been treated as one by the world, so how can he be exactly the same as us?

it's such a privilege to not die prematurely

Nzinga didn't miss a beat in replying that black women need to identify racism wherever we find it, especially our own internalized racism, when we're filled with such a deep self-loathing we turn against our own

Dominique began to regret allowing Nzinga to do everything and make decisions for her she started to yearn to do the housework herself, yearn to cook, to clean, to do a job that was more intellectually demanding her life was becoming empty of purpose other than to love Nzinga unconditionally, and, increasingly, obey her even the simplest things became a source of difficulty

I tell Mum she married a patriarch look at it this way, Amma, she says, your father was born male in Ghana in the 1920s whereas you were born female in London in the 1960s and your point is? you really can't expect him to 'get you', as you put it I let her know she's an apologist for the patriarchy and complicit in a system that oppresses all women she says human beings are complex I tell her not to patronize me

I don't want you to give in, I want you to change, to understand my reasoning at a deeper level and accept it as the truth.

a white girl walking with a black girl is always seen as black-man-friendly

He'll be moulded by America, that's for sure, just by being there. He won't even be aware it's happening. He'll be filled with the American sense of self-belief, and the sense of can-do, and the Harvard sense of entitlement.

Twitter is the perfect platform for the permanently outraged who want to express opinions through short statements without having to engage in proper arguments or defend positions.