Africa Quotes

“In America the dream is to make it out of the ghetto. In Soweto, because there was no leaving the ghetto, the dream was to transform the ghetto.”

“As a kid I understood that people were different colors, but in my head white and black and brown were like types of chocolate. Dad was the white chocolate, mom was the dark chocolate, and I was the milk chocolate. But we were all just chocolate. I didn’t know any of it had anything to do with ‘race.’ I didn’t know what race was. My mother never referred to my dad as white or to me as mixed. So when the other kids in Soweto called me ‘white,’ even though I was light brown, I just thought they had their colors mixed up, like they hadn’t learned them properly. ‘Ah, yes, my friend. You’ve confused aqua with turquoise. I can see how you made that mistake. You’re not the first.’”

“So many black families spend all of their time trying to fix the problems of the past. That is the curse of being black and poor, and it is a curse that follows you from generation to generation. My mother calls it ‘the black tax.’ Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero.”

“But far away in Africa, where the monkeys chattered in the palm-trees before they went to bed under the big yellow moon, they would say to one another, ‘I wonder what The Good Man’s doing now-over there, in the Land of White Men! Do you think he will ever come back?’ And Polynesia would squeak out from the vines, ‘I think he will- I guess he will- I hope he will!‘”

“They say the people could fly. Say that long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic.”

“She flew clumsily at first, with the child now held tightly in her arms. Then she felt the magic, the African mystery.”

“Although Geoffrey, Gilbert and I grew up in this small place in Africa, we did many of the same things children do all over the world, only with slightly different materials. And talking with friends I’ve met from America and Europe, I now know this is true. Children everywhere have similar ways of entertaining themselves. If you look at it this way, the world isn’t so big.”

“A long time ago, in a certain place in Africa, a small village lay across a river and half a day’s journey from a city where a great king lived. A man named Mufaro lived in this village with his two daughters, who were called Manyara and Nyasha. Everyone agreed that Manyara and Nyasha were very beautiful.”

“A reunion with his father in Africa, a steam press for a tailor shop, a ring for a girlfriend. Others may be skeptical of the unicorn’s magic, but with enough effort, Joe believes he can make it all real.”