Quotes from Esi Edugyan

Everything is bizarre, and everything has value. Or if not value, at least merits investigation.

Children know everything about beauty," Titch countered softly. "It is adults who have forgotten.

Baltimore always seems like the kind of city you either leaving or just returning to. Ain't no kinda place to hang your hat. Even as a kid I dreamed of getting out.

a good parent is as rare as snow in summer, I am afraid. Well." He smiled sadly. "It is possible I have some prejudices in this respect.

It don't matter about all that anyway," Armstrong added. "You think it do, but it don't. A man ain't just his one talent. Lil Louis needs you. And Jones look to you like you his brother. You got the talent of making others your kin, your blood. Music, well that's different. I reckon it got its own worth, but it ain't a man's whole life." "Aww hell, Louis," I thought. "Ain't nothing else I want.

it was then I recognized that my own values --- the tenets I hold dear as an Englishman --- they are not the only, nor the best, values in existence. 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.

But then, gradually, miraculously, things began to clear between us. We were able to speak as we'd once done, with great love and little calculation.

You cannot know the true nature of another's suffering." "No. But you can try your damnedest not to worsen it.

She loved me with a viciousness that kept me from ever feeling complacent, with the reminder that nothing was permanent, that we would one day be lost to each other.

case, it was then I recognized that my own values—the tenets I hold dear as an Englishman—they are not the only, nor the best, values in existence. 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.

I do not much care for childhood; it is a state of terrible vulnerability. It is therefore unnatural and incompatible with human life. Everyone will cut you, strike you, cheat you. Everyone will offer you suffering when goodness should reign. And because children can do nothing for themselves, they need good advocates, good parents. But a good parent is as rare as snow in summer.

I was born with a ring of luck at my neck. Luck is its own kind of manacle, perhaps.

But I needed to do myself the justice of at least looking.

I hold dear as an Englishman—they are not the only, nor the best, values in existence. 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.

I tell you what I know. The world's damn beautiful. But it's an accidental beauty. What we do, it's deliberate. It's the one damn consolation you can offer not just you own life, but other lives you ain't even met.

We did not understand each other's differing notions of property.

Is it natural to sever low beings from their true and rightful destinies? From their natural-born purpose? To give them a false sense of agency? As if some creatures are not put here in the service of others. As if cows don't exist to be eaten." He turned his glass in his hands. "Nothing is accidental in the works of nature. Do you know who said that? Aristotle. He said, Nothing is accidental, everything is, absolutely, for the sake of something else.

I liked him very much but did not trust either man.

An ancient old raisin of a man. I

He did not ever mistreat me. But it was no kindness; for I knew this must all end, that I would be returned to the cane fields and their brutality someday. And so I did not allow myself to grow comfortable, but instead scrambled after thermometers tossed in the grass, gathered his dropped scopes, carefully folded leaves into the long wooden box he called his vasculum, feeling each evening only relief that I had not been punished.

I stared at the ahosi. It was said that in battle they wore silk skirts and pretty coral necklaces and that their knives left wounds like love blisters on the throats of their enemies.

This was not the only hazard, though it was the worst of them. White men were everywhere aggrieved, and they would sometimes rise up against us black devils, the miserable black scourge who would destroy their livelihood by labouring at cheaper rates.

kidnappers generally roamed the coast, and in the rainy, grey dusk they would stun a freed man in the street and drag him half-conscious onto a ship bound for the Southern states, to make of him a slave again. This was not the only hazard, though it was the worst of them. White men were everywhere aggrieved, and they would sometimes rise up against us black devils, the miserable black scourge who would destroy their livelihood by labouring at cheaper rates.

It was clear to me that both were intelligent, kind people, but careless with each other's feelings, and poles apart in temperament. I liked both immensely; I hated their way together.