239 Quotes by Chris Cleave

  • Author Chris Cleave
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    Here was the remainder of ten thousand educations, the bones drifted down to this depth. It was the fossil of one’s country. She ached, because the war had cut the thin cord that bound each child to its ancestors with links made from cross-stitch and calligraphy.

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  • Author Chris Cleave
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    We did not have hurry. We did not have electricity or fresh water or sadness either, because none of these had been connected to our village yet.

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  • Author Chris Cleave
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    This is the real reason why no one tells us Africans anything. It is not because anyone wants to keep my continent in ignorance. It is because nobody has the time to sit down and explain the first world from first principles. Or maybe you would like to, but you can’t. Your culture has become sophisticated, like a computer, or a drug that you take for a headache. You can use it, but you cannot explain how it works.

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  • Author Chris Cleave
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    Women share everything. It’s the blessing we received when we turned down muscles and mustaches.” He.

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  • Author Chris Cleave
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    Death, of course, is a refuge. It’s where you go when a new name, or a mask and cape, can no longer hide you from yourself. It’s where you run to when none of the principalities of your conscience will grant you asylum.

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  • Author Chris Cleave
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    Still shaking, in the pew, I understood that it isn’t the dead we cry for. We cry for ourselves, and I didn’t deserve my own pity.

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  • Author Chris Cleave
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    Oh, you know. The lingering sensation that in pursuit of my own exacting goals and objectives I might not have been as generous in spirit as I could have been with regard to the needs and dreams of the people I cared most about or for whom I was emotionally responsible.

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  • Author Chris Cleave
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    It was a patient business, talking comets down to the speed of life.

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