“I grew up in Sierra Leone, in a small village where as a boy my imagination was sparked by the oral tradition of storytelling. At a very young age I learned the importance of telling stories – I saw that stories are the most potent way of seeing anything we encounter in our lives, and how we can deal with living.”
— Ishmael Beah
“We all find joy and radiance and a reason to move on even in the most dire of circumstances. Even in chaos and madness, there’s still a beauty that comes from just the vibrancy of another human spirit.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I believe in having a more open mind and including others who don’t share your faith and having dialogue with them. And just having a pure heart and being a good person can bring you closer to God. Because once you believe in one particular religion fully and not others, that requires you to start disliking people who don’t share your views.”
— Ishmael Beah
“As a kid in Africa, you were so connected to nature itself because you went farming, watched the moon out at night, observed how the sky was different, and how the birds chanted different songs in the evening and the morning.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I had a very simple, unremarkable and happy life. And I grew up in a very small town. And so my life was made up of, you know, in the morning going to the river to fetch water – no tap water, and no electricity – and, you know, bathing in the river, and then going to school, and playing soccer afterwards.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I was one of those children forced into fighting at the age of 13, in my country Sierra Leone, a war that claimed the lives of my mother, father and two brothers. I know too well the emotional, psychological and physical burden that comes with being exposed to violence as a child or at any age for that matter.”
— Ishmael Beah
“My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed.”
— Ishmael Beah
“The sun’s brightness painted our shadows on the ground.”
— Ishmael Beah
“We must strive to be like the moon.’ An old man in Kabati repeated this sentence often… the adage served to remind people to always be on their best behavior and to be good to others. [S]he said that people complain when there is too much sun and it gets unbearably hot, and also when it rains too much or when it is cold. But, no one grumbles when the moon shines. Everyone becomes happy and appreciates the moon in their own special way. Children watch their shadows and play in its light, people gather at the square to tell stories and dance through the night. A lot of happy things happen when the moon shines. These are some of the reasons why we should want to be like the moon.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I’ve come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end…”
— Ishmael Beah
“Children played guessing games, telling each other whether the gun fired was and AK-47, a G3, an RPG, or a machine gun.”
— Ishmael Beah
“One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I felt that I was starting over and over again. I was always on the move, always going somewhere. While we walked, I sometimes lagged behind, thinking about these things. To survive each passing day was my goal in life. At villages where we managed to find some happiness by being treated to food or fresh water, I knew that it was temporary and that we were only passing through. So I couldn’t bring myself to be completely happy. It was much easier to be sad than to go back and forth between emotions, and this gave me the determination I needed to keep moving. I was never disappointed, since I always expected the worst to happen. There were nights when I couldn’t sleep but stared into the darkest night until my eyes could see clearly through it. I thought about where my family was and whether they were alive.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I am always quiet so that I know what to say when I must speak.”
— Ishmael Beah
“Sometimes I closed my eyes hard to avoid thinking, but the eye of the mind refused to be closed and continued to plague me with images.”
— Ishmael Beah
“We took a bowl each and started eating. He went back into the little room, and by the time he returned to the table with his own bowl of food to eat with us, we had already finished. He was shocked and looked around to see if we had done something else with the food.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I was so happy that my mother, father, and two brothers had somehow found one another. Perhaps my mother and father have gotten back together, I thought.”
— Ishmael Beah
“Who can ever know what path to walk on when all of them are either crooked or broken? One just has to walk.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.”
— Ishmael Beah
“My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector, and my rule was to kill or be killed. The extent of my thoughts didn’t go much beyond that. We had been fighting for over two years, and killing had become a daily activity. I felt no pity for anyone.”
— Ishmael Beah
“Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their family and communities…This was one of the consequences of civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you.”
— Ishmael Beah
“The branches of the trees looked as if they were holding hands and bowing their heads in prayer.”
— Ishmael Beah
“It isn’t about knowing the most stories, child. It is about carrying the ones that are most important and passing them along.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I lay in my bed night after night staring at the ceiling and thinking, Why have I survived the war? Why was I the last person in my immediate family to be alive? I didn’t know.”
— Ishmael Beah
“On our way back to her house, I didn’t look at the city lights any longer. I looked into the sky and felt as if the moon was following us.When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, “In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy, and confusion.” That night I wanted the sky to talk to me.”
— Ishmael Beah
“I put my hands behind my head and lay on my back, trying to hold on to the memories of my family. Their faces seemed to be far off somewhere in my mind, and to get to them I had to bring up painful memories.”
— Ishmael Beah
“Circumstances will change and things will be fine, just hold on a little more”
— Ishmael Beah
“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.”
— Ishmael Beah
“Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I close my eyes and wait for death. Even thought I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die and all that will be left is my empty body walking with you. It will be quieter than I am.”
— Ishmael Beah
“How many more times do we have to come to terms with death before we find safety?” he asked. He waited a few minutes, but the three of us didn’t say anything. He continued: “Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I close my eyes and wait for death. Even though I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die and all that will be left is my empty body walking with you. It will be quieter than I am.”
— Ishmael Beah