36 Quotes by Lawrence Hill

WHEN I WAS VERY YOUNG, Papa used to tell me that words fly on wild winds from the mouths of sly people. When the winds pick up, he said, sand blows into your ears and bites your eyes. Storms build overhead like a lake with a spout, but you can’t see or hear. Only when you are safely sheltered, Papa said, can you tell which way the wind is blowing. Only from the calm, he said, can you see how to protect yourself from trouble.

To gaze into another person's face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity, and to assert your own.

I knew that it would be called the United States. But I refused to speak that name. there was nothing united about a nation that said all men were created equal, but that kept my people in chains

In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast with lungs breathing and heart beating.

Every voter knew that the Family Party had come to power promising to deport Illegals, to manage its borders more efficiently and to ensure that people of traditional European stock weren't overrun in their own country.

When it comes to understanding others, we rarely tax our imaginations.

Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all.

That, I decided, was what it meant to be a slave: your past didn’t matter, in the present you were invisible and you had no claim on the future.

I knew that it would be called the United States. But I refused to speak that name. there was nothing united about a nation that said all men were created equal, but that kept my people in chains.