“They are the people of creation. Their maker…gives them the sky to carry because they are so strong. These people do not know who they are, but if you see a lot of trouble in your life, it is because you were chosen to carry part of the sky on your head.”
— Edwidge Danticat
“No, women like you don’t write. They carve onion sculptures and potato statues. They sit in dark corners and braid their hair in new shapes and twists in order to control the stiffness, the unruliness, the rebelliousness.”
— Edwidge Danticat
“The women in your family have never lost touch with one another. Death is a path we take to meet on the other side.”
— Edwidge Danticat
“Old age is not meant to be survived alone,” Man Rapadou said, her voice trailing with her own hidden thoughts. “Death should come gently, slowly, like a man’s hand approaching your body. There can be joy in impatience if there is time to find the joy.”
— Edwidge Danticat
“People are just too hopeful, and sometimes hope is the biggest weapon of all to use against us. People will believe anything.”
— Edwidge Danticat
“You have all these people in the city and everything has become centralized. If you live outside the city and you need a birth certificate or some official paper from the government, you have to travel to the city.”
– Edwidge Danticat
“I wanted to raise the voice of a lot of the people that I knew growing up, and this was, for the most part, poor people who had extraordinary dreams but also very amazing obstacles.”
– Edwidge Danticat