25 Quotes by Paule Marshall

They were intended to be the fastest amphibian aircraft in the world. That's a big appeal.

It's a beautiful aircraft. I've flown in it. He's put a lot into it, a lot of high-quality materials. It shows.

A silenced Haiti has once again found its literary voice.

Sometimes a person has to go back, really back-to have a sense, an understanding of all that's gone to make them-before they can go forward.

I question whether I want to be integrated into America as it stands now, with its complacency and materialism, its soullessness ...

Once a great wrong has been done, it never dies. People speak the words of peace, but their hearts do not forgive. Generations perform ceremonies of reconciliation but there is no end.

I realise that it is fashionable now to dismiss the traditional novel as something of an anachronism, but to me it is still a vital form. Not only does it allow for the kind of full-blown, richly detailed writing that I love . . . but it permits me to operate on many levels and to explore both the inner state of my characters as well as the worlds beyond them.

We live surrounded by white images, and white in this world is synonymous with the good, light, beauty, success, so that, despite ourselves sometimes, we run after that whiteness and deny our darkness, which has been made into the symbol of all that is evil and inferior.

But sometimes it's necessary to go back before you can go forward, really forward.