Ngigi did not seem in the least surprised to find I was a doctor, and I remembered that there were women witch doctor as well as men. At least here I would have no battle to fight.

I told them how our nurses and Father’s assistant were africans. “They don’t boil missionaries,” I told them, my face red with anger. “They save lives and they are a whole lot smarter than the stupid, silly girls who drew that pictures.

It is hard to give up what you know for what you don’t know.

I liked having some time to myself. Our family was such a close one, you could get smothered. Of course, we didn’t always agree with one another. Sometimes I quarreled with my brother and sisters, but I couldn’t remember hating anyone for more than five minutes.

People long to go backward in their imagination as well as forward. We don’t wish simply to exist forever in some future; we wish to have existed in some distant past.

You’re making yourself too important. Guilt comes from feeling we’re at the center of the universe. We’re not.

We all have secrets in our hearts.

You have to give as good as you get.

If I know my Rachel, she will do what she wants to do. And perhaps that is the best.

If you love books, I will give you some to take with you, and one day I will introduce you to the writers of the books.