Quotes from Esi Edugyan

Ain't no man can outrun his fate.

To me, chocolate was the sole reason we on this earth.

Folks think a lifetime is a thing stretched out over years. It ain't. It can happen quick as a match in a dark room.

It's like that, I guess, when the past come to collect what you owe.

I guess mercy is a muscle like any other. You got to exercise it, or it just cramp right up.

You took me on because I was helpful in your political cause. Because I could aid in your experiments. Beyond that I was of no use to you, and so you abandoned me." I struggled to get my breath. "I was nothing to you. You never saw me as equal. You were more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men.

We must all take on faith the stories of our birth, for though we are in them, we are not yet present.

I understood there were many ways of being in the world, that to privilege one rigid set of beliefs over another was to lose something. Everything is bizarre, and everything has value. Or if not value, at least merits investigation.

You were more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men.

There are several kinds of happiness, Washington. Sometimes it is not for us to choose, or even understand, the one granted us.

Negroes are God's creatures also, with all due rights and freedoms. Slavery is a moral stain against us. If anything will keep white men from their heaven, it is this.

The cabbie's eyes sort of glazed over. Canada kills any conversation quick, I learned long ago. It's a little trick of mine.

To me, chocolate was the sole reason we on this earth.

The kid come in at a strange angle, made the notes glitter like crystal.

Chip said it was his piano hands - one ain't never doing the same thing as the other.

Hell," he said with a grin. "It's early yet. It's always early, while you still alive.

Such a thing is not possible." I peered quietly at him. "Nothing is possible, sir, until it is made so.

Ain't no glory made from being dependable.

How could he have treated me so, he who congratulated himself on his belief that I was his equal? I had never been his equal. To him, perhaps, any deep acceptance of equality was impossible. He saw only those who were there to be saved, and those did the saving.

It ain't fair. Gifts is divided so damn unevenly. Like God just left his damn sack of talents in a ditch somewhere and said, "Go help yourselves, ladies and gents.Them's that get there first can help themselves to the biggest ones. In every other walk of life, a jack can work to get what he want. but ain't no amount of toil going get you a lick more talent than you born with. Geniuses ain't made, brother, they just is. and I just was not.

Ain't no man can outrun his fate.

What is luck but something made to run out.

The wrecked visage I was forced to carry like an unwanted warning to others was to her a known thing, a familiar mask. She seemed to see beneath it something of her own suffering and recovery—the acceptance of a life-changing wound, the will to go on.

I hesitate, I suppose it is only from a general dread of company. We all of us wish for it, in our solitude, but on the eve of a great visit, we shudder.