55 Quotes by Esi Edugyan

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.

It ain't really Czechoslovakian,' I said, coughing. 'We used to call it the Cheque. Like, you drink it up now, you pay for it later.

Sometimes...I will stand ...and look upon the babe's face at a distance. I almost cannot bear it: the soft skin, the tenderness, the eyes so guileless and trusting. I would almost wish the innocent to be stricken at once, there, in God's house. To keep such purity intact. From the arms of God to the arms of God.

Folks think a lifetime is a thing stretched out over years. It ain’t. It can happen quick as a match in a dark room.

I guess mercy is a muscle like any other. You got to exercise it, or it just cramp right up.

To me, chocolate was the sole reason we are on this earth.

It’s like that, I guess, when the past come to collect what you owe.

You took me on because I was helpful in your political cause. Because I could aid in your experiments. Beyond that I was of no use to you, and so you abandoned me.” I struggled to get my breath. “I was nothing to you. You never saw me as equal. You were more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men.

How could he have treated me so, he who congratulated himself on his belief that I was his equal? I had never been his equal. To him, perhaps, any deep acceptance of equality was impossible. He saw only those who were there to be saved, and those did the saving.