"A Bend in the River" Quotes
A merchant of Indian descent navigates the political and social upheavals of postcolonial Africa while running a shop on the banks of a remote river.
fiction | Published in 2020
Quotes
We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.
You must avoid giving the impression that you want something, which yesterday you despised.
It occurred to me that all great deeds have to be done in the great silence that follows the act.
Yvette is never happy when she is happy, but only when she is unhappy. She is under the impression that she was born unhappy and that happiness is something to be acquired.
The world is smaller nowadays.
Everyone is ambitious in Africa. But there is a way to get what one wants – one gets everyone else out of the way.
There is no distance, it seems, that Africans will not go if they think there is money to be made.
The earth is a closed system, linked by a vast and complicated set of rules.
It is not speed or power that creates new worlds; knowledge is central.
Why so much hatred? Because we are alone. Men like us cannot be bought without haste.
