Petina Quotes & Sayings

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive. — Albert Einstein

I think the thing that I most deplore about American writing ... is a lack of craftsmanship. It comes right down to this - the lack of absolute love for language, the lack of sitting down and working a good idea into a gem of an idea. — Harper Lee

Each country has a soul, and France's soul is equality. — Francois Hollande

[L]ife is one big jest at the expense of humanity. -
'The Mupondawana Dancing Champion — Petina Gappah

They had become a nation of traders. — Petina Gappah

THERE IS ONE mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair. I sit on the stool and my mother stands behind me with the scissors, trimming. The strands fall on the floor in a dull, blond ring. — Veronica Roth

Is this, like, a thing? Do casino owners just grab women they want and declare them as theirs or something? Because I'm starting to see a trend, — Alessandra Torre

This is one of the consequences of a superior education, you see. In this independent, hundred-per-cent-empowered and fully and totally indigenous blacker-than-black country, a superior education is one that the whites would value, and as whites do not value local languages at the altar of what the whites deem supreme. So it was in colonial times, and so it remains, more than thirty years later. — Petina Gappah

Fame is an elastic concept, especially in a place like this, where we all know the smell of each other's armpits. - 'The Mupondawana Dancing Champion — Petina Gappah

The sun will rise tomorrow, even if you get knocked out in 30 seconds. — Greg Jackson

Wafa Wanaka, our elders say. Not only does this mean that death is the ultimate peace, it also means that we are not to speak ill of the dead. Once a person has crossed over to the real of the spirits, he takes his transgressions with him, and we speak only of the good. - 'Something Nice from London — Petina Gappah

Each heartbreak is a little death, all the same. — Petina Gappah

Dr. Rush made patients ingest the solution until they drooled, and often people's teeth and hair fell out after weeks or months of continuous treatment. His "cure" no doubt poisoned or outright killed swaths of people whom yellow fever might have spared. Even so, having perfected his treatment in Philadelphia, ten years later he sent Meriwether and William off with some prepackaged samples. As a handy side effect, Dr. Rush's pills have enabled modern archaeologists to track down campsites used by the explorers. With the weird food and questionable water they encountered in the wild, someone in their party was always queasy, and to this day, mercury deposits dot the soil many places where the gang dug a latrine, perhaps after one of Dr. Rush's "Thunderclappers" had worked a little too well. — Sam Kean

When we talk of fate, when we talk of a fatalistic vision of human experience, what we mean is that the most important forces that shape human lives are out of human control. — Petina Gappah

Fear, the worst of all enemies, can be effectively cured by forced repetition of acts of courage. — Napoleon Hill

There is only one illness that pushes both the well-wheeled and the un-wheeled to seek out the prophet. It is the big disease with the little name, the sickness that no one dies of, the disease whose real name is unspoken, the sickness that speaks its presence through the pink redness of lips, the slipperiness of hair, through the whites of the eyes whiter than nature intended. — Petina Gappah

I had never seen so many books gathered in a single space as I saw in that room. I felt less afraid when I thought of all the other people who seemed to have had harder lives than mine. I disappeared completely to occupy the world of whatever book I was reading. — Petina Gappah

A voice reminds us that the land is ours, it will not be taken from us again; the country will never be a colony again. - 'Something Nice from London — Petina Gappah

Every man must define his identity against his mother. If he does not, he just falls back into her and is swallowed up. — Camille Paglia

People are just way too sensitive. You couldn't have a show like 'Archie Bunker' on TV. People would go crazy; they would lose their minds. — Tracy Morgan

It may well be that there will be this socialism, Juliana,' she said, 'but I can tell you right now that no amount of socialism will make my madam was her own underwear.' - 'Aunt Juliana's Indian — Petina Gappah

Like the worthless dogs that are his countrymen, my husband believed that his penis was wasted if he was faithful to just one woman. - At the Sound of the Last Post — Petina Gappah

There is no happy medium to our food; it is either overcooked or undercooked, or it has too much salt or not enough, or there is not enough oil in the fried vegetables or there is so much that you almost fear that America will invade. — Petina Gappah

For much of my life as a journalist, I've viewed myself as being embedded with civilians and with those people who live on the other side of the barrel of a gun. — Jeremy Scahill

[ ... ] without much ardor but quite unmistakably, she was writhing her hips as if she were dancing. When he was very close, he saw' her gaping mouth: she was yawning lengthily, insatiably: the great open hole was rocking gently atop die mechanically dancing body. Jean-Marc thought: she's dancing and she's bored.
He reached the seawall: down below, on the beach, he saw men with their heads thrown back releasing kites into the air. They were doing it with passion, and Jean-Marc recalled his old theory: there are three kinds of boredom: passive boredom: the girl dancing and yawning; active boredom: kite-lovers; and rebellious boredom: young people burning cars and smashing shop windows. — Milan Kundera

Some guy workin' at Home Depot, he wants to f-k just as many women as a celebrity. But he can't do it, because whores don't care about lumber. — Bill Burr

It will not be possible for me to escape the past. But if I go back there, it will only be to find ways to make rich my present. To accept that there are no villains in my life, just broken people, trying to heal, stumbling in darkness and breaking each other...To stop living what has been, until now, this pale imitation of life. — Petina Gappah