Rita Williams-Garcia Quotes & Sayings

Cecile made it sound like it was no big deal. "I've been fighting for freedom all my life." But she wasn't talking about protest signs, standing up to the Man, and knowing your rights. She was talking about her life. Just her. Not the people. — Rita Williams-Garcia

Mixing comes natural. i just ought to. not am i mixed to perfection, i have aptitude for art and colors. — Rita Williams-Garcia

I just took the box and nodded, because that's how you treat crazy people. You nod and count down twenty-seven days for crazy to come to an end. — Rita Williams-Garcia

If you knew what I knew, seen what I've seen, you wouldn't be so quick to pull the plow. — Rita Williams-Garcia

Today we're going to be like the earth, spinning around and affecting many. — Rita Williams-Garcia

That was how I knew Sister Mukumbo was a real teacher, aside from her welcoming smile and her blackboard penmanship. She asked a teacher's type of question. The kind that says: Join in. — Rita Williams-Garcia

Saying "please" without saying it to someone you don't want to say "please" to in the first place tops the list of hard. — Rita Williams-Garcia

We're trying to break yokes. You're trying to make one for yourself. — Rita Williams-Garcia

It was a strange, wonderful feeling. To discover eyes upon you when you expected no one to notice you at all. — Rita Williams-Garcia

I had a lot of those memories clicking before me like projector slides in the dark. Lots of pictures, smells and sounds flashing in and out. — Rita Williams-Garcia

A name is important. It isn't something you drop in the litter basket or on the ground. Your name is now people know you. The very mention of your name makes a picture spring to mind, whether it's a picture of clashing fists or a mighty mountain that can't be knocked down. Your name is who you are and how you're known even when you do something great or something dumb. — Rita Williams-Garcia

Heckle and Jeckle again — Rita Williams-Garcia

I pressed and I prayed. It was only right that pressing went with prayer. That and being sorry. Every wrinkle was a patch of sorry to be smoothed and flattened. — Rita Williams-Garcia

We all have our la-la-la song. The thing we do when the world isn't singing a nice tune to us. We sing our own nice tune to drown out ugly. — Rita Williams-Garcia

Dear Delphine,
When you are older I want you to find Chinua Achebe. I want you to read Things Fall Apart. Don't be hardheaded and try to read this book now. Don't be hardheaded, Delphine. You are the smart one, but you are not ready. You can read all its words. Even the African words. But you will not know what Achebe is saying. It is a bad thing to bite into a hard fruit with little teeth. You will say bad things about the fruit when the problem is your teeth.
I want you to read this book. I want you to know Things Fall Apart. Fourteen is a good age to find Chinua Achebe.
Nzila.
Your Mother.
P.S. For now you are eleven. Be eleven. — Rita Williams-Garcia

The last thing Pa and Big Ma wanted to hear was how we made a grand Negro spectacle of ourselves thirty thousand feet up in the air around all these white people. — Rita Williams-Garcia