Chris Cleave

“Still shaking, in the pew, I understood that it isn't the dead we cry for. We cry for ourselves, and I didn't deserve my own pity.”

“In my world death will come chasing. In your world it will start whispering in your ear to destroy yourself. I know this because it started whispering to me when I was in the detention center.”

“Death is 'where you run to when none of the principalities of your conscience will grant you asylum.' ....'In my world [(Africa)] death will come chasing. In your world [(the West)] it will start whispering in your ear to destroy yourself.' 'We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? ... A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means 'I survived''A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvellous, and she will turn around and smile.”

“When death comes you do not stay for one minute in the place it has visited. Many things arrive after death-sadness, questions, and policemen- and none of these can be answered when your papers are not in order.”

“How I would love to be a British pound. A pound is free to travel to safety and we are free to watch it go. This is the triumph. This is called globalisation. 2”

“A pound coin can go wherever it thinks it will be safest. ... It can disguise itself as power or property and there is nothing more serious than you are a girl who has neither. 12”

“Me and Nkiruka, we watched through the window until the moon grew an extraordinary size, so big that it filled the window frame. We could see the face of the man in the moon, so close that we could see the madness in his eyes.”

“She was whispering into it in some language that sounded like butterflies drowning in honey.”

“Once when we stopped to rest, she dug her toes into the earth at the edge of a field and smiled. When I saw her smile, I felt strong enough to carry on..”

“The only reason we were married in such haste was that my mother begged me not to marry Andrew at all. One of you in a marriage has to be soft, she said. One of you has to know how to say, Have it your way. That’s not going to be you, dear, so it might as well be the man.”

“This is the forked tongue of grief again. It whispers in one ear: return to what you once loved best, and in the other ear it whispers, move on.”

“That is how we lived, happily and without hope. I was very young then, and I did not miss having a future because I did not know I was entitled to one.”

“...a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. . . We must see all scars as beauty... Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.In a few breaths' time I will speak some sad words to you... You must hear them the way we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive.”

“I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.”

“I hope this letter reaches you (Osama) anyway. I hope it finds you before the Americans do otherwise I'm going to wish I hadn't bothered aren't I?”

“I think my ideal man would speak many languages. He would speak Ibo and Yoruba and English and French and all of the others. He could speak with any person, even the soldiers, and if there was violence in their heart he could change it. He would not have to fight, do you see? Maybe he would not be very handsome, but he would be beautiful when he spoke. He would be very kind, even if you burned his food because you were laughing and talking with your girlfriends instead of watching the cooking. He would just say, 'Ah, never mind'.”

“Our stories are the tellers of us.”

“[Sarah has had the middle finger of her left hand amputated] and she says that when she types:I can't rely on E,D, and C anymore. They go missing when I need them most. Pleased becomes please. Ecstasies becomes stasis.”

“your culture has become sophisticated, like a computer, or a drug that you take for a headache. You can use it, but you cannot explain how it works. Certainly not to girls who stack up their firewood against the side of the house. ”

“The future looks like gasoline. . . . crude oil . . . is the future before it has been refined. It is like a dream of the future, really, and like any dream it ends with a rude awakening.”

“To be well in your mind you have first to be free.”

“Life is extremely short and you cannot dance to current affairs.”

“Nobody has the time to sit down and explain the first world from first principles.”

“They say that in the hour before an earthquake the clouds hang leaden in the sky, the winds slows to a hot breath, and the birds fall quiet in the trees of the town square. Yes but these are the same portents that precede lunchtime, frankly.”

“That is the trouble with happiness-all of it is built on top of something that men want.”

“There was no quick grief for Andrew because he had been so slowly lost. First from my heart, then from my mind, and only finally from my life.”

“Death, of course, is a refuge. It's where you go when a new name, or a mask and cape, can no longer hide you from yourself. It's where you run to when none of the principalities of your conscience will grant you asylum.”

“Is it my fault if I do not look like an English girl and I do not talk like a Nigerian? Well, who says an English girl must have skin as pale as the clouds that float across her summers? Who says a Nigerian girl must speak in fallen English...?”

“And thus love makes fools of us all.”

“I ask you right here to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must see all scars as beauty... because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this story teller is alive. The next think you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile.”

“How to explain... that the warning signs were so slight? That disaster, when it is quite sure of its own strength, will announce itself by hardly moving its lips?”

“Before you bombed my boy Osama I always thought an explosion was such a quick thing but now I know better. The flash is over very fast but the fire catches hold inside you and the noise never stops…I live in an inferno where you could shiver with cold Osama. This life is a deafening roar but listen. You could hear a pin drop.”

“If your face is swollen from the severe beatings of life, smile and pretend to be a fat man.”

“Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dess? I though that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. "We must see all scars as beauty. OKay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on dying. A scar means, I survivied.”

“You travel here and you travel there, trying to get out from under the cloud, and nothing works, and then one day you realize you've been carrying the weather around with you.”

“I smiled back at Charlie and I knew that the hopes of this whole human world could fit inside one soul. This is a good trick. This is called, globalization.”

“It was beautiful, and that is a word I would not need to explain to the girls from back home, and I do not need to explain to you, because now we are all speaking the same language. The waves still smashed against the beach, furious and irresistible. But me, I watched all of those children smiling and dancing and splashing one another in salt water and bright sunlight, and I laughed and laughed and laughed until the sound of the sea was drowned.”

“So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge.”

“Andrew had a gift for deepening the incision he began.”

“You're not asking for input. You are asking your admirer's to prove they are paying attention.”

“I know that the hopes of this whole human world can fit inside one soul.”

“At some point you just have to turn around and face your life head on.”

“You are blind to the present and we are blind to the future”

“Psychiatry in this place is like serving an in-flight meal in the middle of a plane crash. If I wanted to make you well, as a doctor, I should be giving you a parachute, not a cheese-and-pickle sandwich.”

“It was hard not to be full of hope”

“I’m telling you, trouble is like the ocean. It covers two thirds of the world.”

“We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.”

“I was carrying two cargoes. Yes, one of them was horror, but the other one was hope.”

“April showers bring May flower”

“What is an adventure? That depends on where you are starting from. Little girls in your country, they hide in the gap between the washing machine and the refrigerator and they make believe they are in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around them. Me and my sister, we used to hide in a gap in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around us, and make believe that we had a washing machine and a refrigerator. You live in a world of machines and you dream off things with beating hearts. We dream of machines, because we see where beating hearts have left us.”