“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
“[T]he unnamed soldier is a gift. The named soldier--dead, melted wax--demands a response among the living...a response no-one can make. Names are no comfort, they're a call to answer the unanswerable. Why did she die, not him? Why do the survivors remain anonymous--as if cursed--while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold? Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.”
“They know what to say if spoken to. They laugh really; they get angry really; while I have to look first and then do what other people do when they have done it.”
“Kas was right: a woman could destroy a man. This one could do so, simply by knowing his name. She could do so, simply with her eyes.”
“Man African societies divide humans into 3 categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalized ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many...can be recalled by name. But they are not living-dead. There is a difference.”
“If someone remarks: "What an excellent man you are!" and this pleases you more than his saying, "What a bad man you are!" know that you are still a bad man.”