The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
When you have caught the rhythm of Africa, you find out that it is the same in all her music.
Man reaches the highest point of lovableness at 12 to 17 – to get it back, in a second flowering, at the age of 70 to 90.
I don’t believe in evil; I believe only in horror. In nature there is no evil, only an abundance of horror: the plagues and the blights and the ants and the maggots.
There is a particular hapiness in giving a man whom you like very much, good food that you have cooked yourself.
Here I am, where I am supposed to be.
But by the time that I had nothing left, I myself was the lightest thing of all for fate to get rid of.
Where the storyteller is loyal, eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak. Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness. But we, the faithful, when we have spoken our last word, will hear the voice of silence.
It is more than their land that you take away from the people, whose native land you take. It is their past as well, their roots and their identity. If you take away the things that they have been used to see and will be expecting to see, you may, in a way, as well take their eyes.
There are many ways to the recognition of truth, and Burgundy is one of them.
Who tells a finer tale than any of us. Silence does.
All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.
After being told that the Professor “found it possible to believe for a moment in the existence of God,” Isak thought, “Has it been possible to God, at Mount Elgon, to believe for a moment in the existence of Professor Landgreen?
Camping-places fix themselves in your mind as if you had spent long periods of your life in them. You will remember the curve of your waggon track in the grass of the plain, like the features of a friend.
Natives dislike speed, as we dislike noise, it is to them, at the best, hard to bear. They are also on friendly terms with time, and the plan of beguiling or killing it does not come into their heads. In fact the more time you can give them, the happier they are, and if you commission a Kikuyu to hold your horse while you make a visit, you can see by his face that he hopes you will be a long, long time about it. He does not try to pass the time then, but sits down and lives.
From my journeys in southern Europe I have gained the impression that in our time the Virgin Mary is the only heavenly creature who is really beloved by millions. But I believe these millions would be uncomprehending and perhaps even offended if I were to tell them that the Virgin Mary had made a significant discovery, solved difficult mathematical problems, or masterfully organized and administered an association of housewives in Nazareth.
The plan which I had formed in the beginning, to give in in all minor matters, so as to keep what was of vital importance to me, had turned out to be a failure. I had consented to give away my possessions one by one, as a kind of ransom for my own life, but by the time that I had nothing left, I myself was the lightest thing of all, for fate to get rid of.
I have been with you every day of my life. You know, do you not, that is has been so? And, I shall be with you every day that is left to me. Every evening I shall sit down, if not in flesh, which means nothing, in spirit, which is all, to dine with you, just like tonight. For tonight I have learned that in this world anything is possible.
It is when people are told their own thoughts that they think they are being insulted. But why should not their own thoughts be good enough for other people to tell them?
People work much in order to secure the future; I gave my mind much work and trouble, trying to secure the past.