60 Quotes by Yaa Gyasi

When someone does wrong, whether it is you or me, whether it is mother or father, whether it is the Gold Coast man or the white man, it is like a fisherman casting a net into the water. He keeps only the one or two fish that he needs to feed himself and puts the rest in the water, thinking their lives will go back to normal. No one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free. But still, Yaw, you have to let yourself be free.

I couldn't imagine living the way she lived, free, like an exposed wire ready and willing to touch whatever it touched. I couldn't imagine being willing, and even after those few stolen moments of psychedelic transcendence, nonaddictive, harmless, and, yes, euphoric, I still couldn't imagine being free.

it seems to me that this itself was the disaster I foresaw, a common enough disaster for most infants these days: that I was a baby, born cute, loud, needy, wild, but the conditions of the wilderness have changed.

I had watched Nana walk into the alley and I had watched my mother go after him, and I was so angry at them for not being strong enough to stay in the light. And so I did the hard thing.

Surely, there's strength in being dressed for a storm, even when there's no storm in sight?

When I watched the limping mouse refuse the lever, I was reminded yet again of what it means to be reborn, made new, saved, which is just another way of saying of needing those outstretched hands of your fellows and the grace of God. That saving grace, amazing grace , is a hand and a touch, a fiber- optic implant and a lever and a refusal, and how sweet, how sweet it is.

I think we're made out of stardust and God made the stars," I said. I blew and yellow dust flew into the air, into Anne's hair, and she looked at me like I was crazy, and she saw me.

Most of the time in my work, I begin with the answers, with an idea of the results. I suspect that something is true and then I work toward that suspicion, experimenting, tinkering, until I find what I am looking for. The ending, the answer, is never the hard part. The hard part is trying to figure out what the question is, trying to ask something interesting enough, different enough from what has already been asked, trying to make it all matter.

The anger has notes of understanding in it. He's saying, *Yes, she's insufferable, but she's ours and so we must suffer her.*