Quotes from Simone Schwarz-Bart

Every day you must arise and say to your heart, I have suffered enough and now I must live because the light of the sun must not be wasted, it must not be lost without an eye to appreciate it.

Only the knife knows what goes on in the heart of a pumpkin.

There is the churning and the boiling of the sea, and the foam on top of it and that is what man is, churning and foam together.

All rivers, even the most dazzling, those that catch the sun in their course, all rivers go down to the ocean and drown. And life awaits man as the sea awaits the river.

Men are strong, women are smart, but no matter how smart, their bellies are always there to betray women and that's their downfall.

when an old person dies, a whole library disappears.

The tale is, in large part, our capital. I was nourished on tales...when an old person dies, a whole library disappears.

Behind one pain there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. But the horse mustn't ride you, you must ride it.

Only the knife knows what goes on in the heart of a pumpkin." Simone Schwarz-Bart

The place had a kind of mistery, as if, in some long distant past, it had been inhabited by men who knew how to rejoice in rivers, trees, and sky.

And if we Negroes at the back of beyond honor our dead for nine days, it's so that the soul of the deceased should not be hurried in any way, so that it can detach itself gradually from its piece of earth, its chair, its favorite tree, and the faces of its friends, before going to contemplate the hidden side of the sun.

It is always the same forest, always as dense as ever. And so, my son, put aside the branches as best you can, that's all.

he would ask me a thousand little questions, just, he said, to sound out the future a little.

However tall trouble is, man must make himself taller still, even if it means making stilts.

On croit que c'est fini et le fil des jours s'allonge encore, tisse de nouvelles joies, de nouveaux rêves, de nouvelles expériences. On croit mourir et le cœur bat toujours, et tout recommence.

I loved the ox, and every day I congratulated myself on being of this world.

and I think of the Negro's life and of its mystery. We have no more marks to guide us than the bird in the air or the fish in the water, and in the midst of this uncertainty we live, and some laugh and others sing.

It may well be that all suffering, even the prickles in the canefields, are part of the glory of man

In the state he's in, my child, your love is of no use to him—the whole world might love him and to him it would be of no use. Alas, if only men could love not with half their heart but with the whole heart God has given us, then no one would deserve to die. But as you see, no one is immortal, and that is how the world goes around.

the three crowns that can usually be hoped for only at the end of a long life. Love, the trust of others, and that kind of glory that accompanies every woman who is happy

I watched him as a sailor watches the wind in fair weather, knowing not every ship reaches haven.

But man's mishaps have never made the sun shine any less bright.

At this very moment I have left my grief at the bottom of the river. It is going downstream, and will enshroud another heart than mine. Talk to me about life, Grandmother. Talk to me about that.

all these words, this laughter, these marks of attention, helped to lift me back in the saddle, to hold my horse's bridle with a firm grip.