Quotes from Simone Schwarz-Bart

And the days went by, and I forgot I was a fallen acomat, and began to feel the beauty of my own two woman's legs again, and started to walk.

After she'd eaten her custard I took her head in my lap, and she talked to me of the balance of nature and the planets, the permanence of the sky and the stars, and of suffering, which after all is only another way of existing.

As we were talking, completely happy, thinking of nothing but our joy in being together, night suddenly fell, enveloping all the disorder of the world.

Outside, the stars looked as if they were dancing around the moon, and it was as if all beauty and even life itself had taken refuge in the heavenly bodies.

Mon climat intérieur est tropical aujourd'hui : il y a de la pluie, du soleil, des odeurs fortes, et un sentiment de pourriture végétale flotte dans l'air débilitant.

Nous ne te voulons pas de mal, mais nous avons un sens africain de la race. Les blancs sont des blancs, mais vous autres descendants d'esclaves, vous n'êtes rien. Ce n'est pas ta faute, et ce n'est pas la nôtre : tu n'es rien. Tu es un, comme chaque poisson du fleuve.

Mais il resterait toujours ceci, qui m'empêcherait d'écrire ma vie, et qui est peut-être la véritable raison de mes échecs, c'est que si je disais certaines choses, si je racontais toute la vérité, qui n'est pas toujours belle, certains imputeraient mes criminalités à tous ceux qui m'aident à porter ma peau. Mais si ce n'est pas pour tout dire, à quoi sert de parler ?

Ici nous sommes sur terre, Wilnor, et sur terre c'est le tourbillon et la fumée, ce ne sont pas les grandes allées droites du ciel.

With their women's bodies and children's eyes, my friends felt quite ready to get the better of existence

By a mere word tossed into the air he had escaped doom.

If I skip about, it's with my eyes fixed on your flesh and bones.

anyone who on Sunday wanted to forget his weekday soul

You smell of cinnamon in spite of the mombins.' 'You smell of cinnamon too,' I'd murmur.

She would go to and fro amid all this in a sort of permanent joy and richness, as if Indian poppies, congo canes, hummingbirds, and orange trees were enough to fill a woman's heart with complete satisfaction.

The fact is that a mere nothing, a thought, a whim, a particle of dust can change the course of a life.

One evening he felt like hearing people laugh

And the wind rose, sweeping before it the months, the seasons, and the dreams and lamentations of men.

But she had known life for a long time, my amorous mother with her two bastards for earrings; and she knew that almost always you have to tear out your entrails and fill your belly with straw if you want to enjoy a little walk in the sun.

Everyone wanted to know what life was like at Belle-Feuille, behind all those ramparts of green - how they ate, talked, drank, went about their daily lives. And above all, what was important to them in life, and were they at least glad to be alive?

and I'd be a human being again and not a maker of béchamel sauce.

You see people in torn dresses, lying down and getting up in ramshackle cabins, but who knows what they may have in their cupboards? Who knows?

the goods of he earth remain the earth's, and man does not own even the skin he is wrapped in. All he owns are the feelings of his heart.

Meanwhile the others continued the human line, wept, slaved, looked at a rosy sky and laughed.

Here, like everywhere else, laughing and singing, dancing and dreaming are not exactly the whole of reality; and for one ray of sun shining on the hut, the rest of the village remains in the dark.