“Black as night, sweet as sin.”

“It is not that I was credulous, simply that I belived in all things dark and dangerous. It was part of my young creed that the night was full of ghosts and witches, hungry and flapping and dressed completely in black.”

“So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experienced; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding. ”

“The tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste out sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue.”

“Eyes as black and as shiny as chips of obsidian stared back into his. They were eyes like black holes, letting nothing out, not even information.”

“I think there should be more black characters, and more of all kinds of characters, in fiction. Almost all of the main characters in my novel Anansi Boys are black. And there are black characters in featured roles in all the other novels except Stardust and Coraline. (Something I was happy to see was not the case in Henry Selick’s film.)”

“Of all the organs, ' said Nehemiah Trot, 'the tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste our sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue. Go to her! Talk to her!”