Africa Quotes

The schools wear the blank faces of war buildings, their windows blown blind by rocks or guns or mortars. Their plaster is an acne of bullet marks. The huts and small houses crouch open and vulnerable; their doors are flimsy pieces of plyboard or sacks hanging and lank. Children and chickens and dogs scratch in the red, raw soil and stare at us as we drive through their open, eroding lives.

Alexandra Fuller

Why did you bother coming here at all?""For my work. That's my profession. Writing about important things that are happening in the world.""I'm curious to know what exactly you wrote about Gulu. What important thing has been happening here in our town?""Do you think what I do is of no significance?"She gestured impatiently. "Others have come here too, asked the children questions and then gone away, and at least it was all cut-and-dried. But you came back. I thought it was going to be different. What did you come back for? ... You barged into our lives, and now you've got cold feet. What are you afraid of? You got too close to us, right?

Jagielski Wojciech

The matted straw cover of the latrine was yanked away. The sun blinded me as I looked up at the dark outline of two young soldiers in tattered camouflage, their uniforms made for men bigger than they were. They each held an automatic weapon, an AK-47, and were leering down at me. I could see the two gold teeth of one of them as he grinned.Gold-tooth reached down and grabbed my hair, yanking me up by it until he could get the other hand under my arm and pull me the rest of the way. I screamed in terror. He pulled me away from the pit as he and the others held their noses and laughed hysterically. One held each arm and dragged me to the river’s edge. They tore off my loose cotton dress; I had no underwear on. After howling with laughter and firing guns in the air, they crudely touched my body.

Nick Hahn

Volunteering abroad is a powerful force for change but only if you choose the right project.

Volunteer 4 Africa

The Complexities Of Life Caused By Bad Government Leaderships And Parental Mistakes Can Make A Child More Matured Than Their Age. It Happened To Me And It Is Still Happening To So Many Children World Wide. Most Especially, In Africa Where I Come From. This Is Why You See So Many African's Do All Sorts Of Bad Deeds For Surfacing And Surviving To Keep Body And Soul Together.

Baba Tunde Ojo-Olubiyo

African leaders should not turn the continent into a giant collector of donations and loans from wealthy nations—they must find other plausible means to help established their economic security so as to minimize poverty. This incoherent blunder on the mainland must be scrutinized.

Duop Chak Wuol

They say it came from Africa, carried in the screams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles. Fukú americanus, or more colloquially, fukú - generally a curse or doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World. No matter what its name or provenance, it is believed that the arrival of Europeans on Hispaniola unleashed fukú on the world, and we've all been in the shit ever since.

Junot Díaz

Americans of faith should try as hard to save the lives of African women as the lives of unborn fetuses.

Nicholas D. Kristof

All roads lead to Johannesburg. If you are white or if you are black they lead to Johannesburg. If the crops fail, there is work in Johannesburg. If there are taxes to be paid, there is work in Johannesburg. If the farm is too small to be divided further, some must go to Johannesburg. If there is a child to be born that must be delivered in secret, it can be delivered in Johannesburg.

Alan Paton

Mummy became a shadow, a woman who had lost herself because she had never found herself. She had always done the right thing, and I had a feeling that the right thing is always going to be the wrong thing, that you find yourself by stepping out of yourself.

Chloe Thurlow

He couldn't drive the horror of cannibalism from his brain, just as he couldn't wholly suppress a simple observation that seemed to rebut their savagery: these were the nicest man-eating barbarians a lonely wanderer could ever hope to encounter.

Monte Reel

Indeed, there is something in this valley, some spirit and some life, and much to talk about in the huts. Although nothing has come yet, something is here already.

Alan Paton

The coffin was handmade from the wood of a single Eucalyptus tree. There were no handles, it rested on the shoulders of six elegant tribesmen. These were Maasai from Kenya, the warrior tribe, known for their courage and endurance. The walkers followed at a respectful distance, the pace was grueling.

Nick Hahn

If more Africans had eaten missionaries, the continent would be in better shape.

Maya Angelou

Take your place, then. Look at what happened from every side and consider all the other ways it could have gone. Consider, even, an Africa unconquered altogether. Imagine those first Portuguese adventurers approaching the shore, spying on the jungle’s edge through their fitted brass lenses. Imagine that by some miracle of dread or reverence they lowered their spyglasses, turned, set their riggings, sailed on. Imagine all who came after doing the same. What would that Africa be now? All I can think of is the other okapi, the one they used to believe in. A unicorn that could look you in the eye.

Barbara Kingsolver

Never argue with a fool, people might not notice the difference

Niq Mhlongo

Read a different Africa. Love a vibrant Africa.

Kiru Taye

Some people talk of Africa being a continent cursed not blessed with minerals, but the real curse is the leaders and politicians of Africa

Peter Mutanda

How can I explain this? Why is it you can never hope to describe the emotion Africa creates?You are lifted.Out of whatever pit, unbound from whatever tie, released from whatever fear. You are lifted and you see it all from above. Your pit, your ties, your fear. you are lifted, you slowly rise like a hot-air balloon, and all you see is the space and the endless possibilities for losing yourself in it.

Francesca Marciano

Because of my schooling, my fate would always be a little different from my friends.

Daoud Hari

What is more important for the world right now than preserving ways of living in balance with the earth?

Daoud Hari

To witness the awe of human beings delighting in their own hands forming the written word was humbling and he understood it profoundly at that moment watching those two, with the ancient land around them, in their traditional robes and the resting camels by their campfire, intently regarding writing with such immense respect … that illiteracy meant subsistence, while literacy meant human advancement, the base on which higher achievements and accomplishments of great civilizations could be built.

T.K. Naliaka

To Nine’s way of thinking, the problems surrounding the exploitation of coltan in the DRC epitomized the problems the entire African continent faced in capitalizing on the huge untapped wealth that lay beneath its surface. Corruption, political unrest and outside interference from non-African countries ensured the continent that should be the world’s wealthiest remained the poorest.

Lance Morcan

-Back there our sun doesn't speak.-Where's "there," Miss Marta?-Back there, in Europe. Here, it's different. Here, the sun moans, whispers, shouts.-Surely-I commented delicately-the sun is always the same.- You're wrong. There, the sun is a stone. Here it's a fruit.

Mia Couto

According to Okonkwo, the British via its indirect rule system ensured that Africans saw their native leaders as the demons who betrayed their people. He called it a demonocracy and that was the first time I had seen him become so passionate about issues that affect Africa as a people and continent.

S.A. David

The truth for a man, it's what makes him a man.

Antoine De Saint Exupery

If one could speak two languages well and was raised on tea and baguettes for breakfast,in places where the most mundane daily business on the street is conducted in four languages, where horse carts park at cyber cafes, where would one go? Where could one go? Why,with a smile and a handshake, very far, indeed!

T.K. Naliaka

Why should we plant, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?

Anonymous Bushman

We all come from somewhere. Born, aborted, extradited, fugitive or even enslaved. But much of what we are, belongs to Mother Africa. We need to respect and have esteem, knowledge and curiosity. Then, open your eyes to understand a little more. Do not accept this cultural void created by that ethnocentric feeling!

J.B.Alves

...colonialism in Africa was inevitable since the fittest and most creative person was the one that would be destined to lead.

S.A. David

Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories...

Amilcar Cabral

You could have just said Ngozi is your tribal name and Ifemelu is your jungle name and throw in one more as your spiritual name. They’ll believe all kinds of shit about Africa.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If I had not grown up in Nigeria- and if all I knew of Africa were of popular images- I too would think that africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals and incomprehensible people fighting sensless wars, dying of poverty and aids- unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind white foreigner.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If you are stealing something it’s better if it’s small and hideable or something you can eat quickly and be done with, like guavas. This way, people can’t see you with the thing to be reminded that you are a shameless thief and that you stole it from them, so I don’t know what the white people were trying to do in the first place, stealing not just a tiny piece but a whole country. Who can ever forget you stole something like that?

NoViolet Bulawayo

Oh God, not another fucking beautiful day.

James Fox

...she was sensitive enough and intelligent enough to understand, and her literary education could not but have sharpened her perception of the evidence before her eyes: that in the absurd raffle-draw that apportioned the destinies of post-colonial African societies two people starting off even as identical twins in the morning might quiet easily find themselves in the evening one as President shitting on the heads of the people and the other a nightman carrying the people's shit in buckets on his head.

Chinua Achebe

The country is like a great sponge—it finally absorbs you. Eventually you will get malaria or you will get dysentery and whatever you do, if you don't keep doing it, the jungle will grow over you. Black or white, you've got to fight it every minute of the day.

Katharine Hepburn

I love you so much, Sahra. You will do wonderful things. Have courage and believe in yourself.

Abeba Habtu

If the world allows the people of Darfur to be removed forever from their land and their way of life, then genocide will happen elsewhere because it will be seen as something that works. It must not be allowed to work. The people of Darfur need to go home now. I write this for them, and for that day, ... and for those still living who might yet have beautiful lives on the earth.

Daoud Hari

I knew right then and there that I would become as courageous as I needed in order to keep him safe. I thought of the soldiers and bullets that I hid from in Asmara. I would stand and fight them to keep Fili safe.

Abeba Habtu

There is a distressing but not uncommon condition of presidents and other world leaders known as Worrying about Africa. It is usually picked up overseas as at summit meeting on world poverty or disease, and symptoms include painful twinges of guilt over the discrepancy between First and Third World wealth, uncomfortable feelings somewhere below the stomach that perhaps unfettered capitalism is not the benevolent force for good we are constantly assured it is, and frequent attacks of calling for Something to Be Done. The best remedy is invariably a stiff dose of domestic crisis.

Nicholas Drayson

The African continent has always been more queer than generally acknowledged.

Chantal Zabus

I want to defend Ben Bella just as I am going to defend Boumedienne. Ben Bella was not the 'demon' that the nervous, demagogic communique of 19 June accused him of being, no more than Boumedienne is the 'reactionary' that L'Unita wrote about. Both are victims of the same drama that every Third World politician lives through if he is honest, if he is a patriot. This was the drama of Lumumba and Nehru; it is the drama of Nyerere and Sekou Toure. The essence of the drama lies in the terrible material resistance that each one encounters on taking his first, second, and third steps up the summit of power. Each one wants to do something good and begins to do it and then sees, after a month, after a year, after three years, that it just isn't happening, that it is slipping away, that it is bogged down in the sand. Everything is in the way: the centuries of backwardness, the primitive economy, the illiteracy, the religious fanaticism, the tribal blindness, the chronic hunger, the colonial past with its practice of debasing and dulling the conquered, the blackmail by the imperialists, the greed of the corrupt, the unemployment, the red ink. progress comes with great difficulty along such a road. The politician begins to push too hard. He looks for a way out through dictatorship. The dictatorship then fathers an opposition. The opposition organises a coup.And the cycle begins anew.

Ryszard Kapuściński

I do not like to think too much on this Africa. It is too large and too empty,” he said. “People like De Buys, they astonish me with their courage – or perhaps it is a lack in them; they cannot imagine. I think that is one way to be not afraid: in a covered wagon looking at the piece of the horizon your mind can hold, and do not suffer thoughts about endless lands and unknowable things.

Claire Robertson

Pescatore marveled at the seascape. It gave him vertigo. The wind deployed cloud formations. The sun seared the Moroccan coastline. He had read a line once about "the lion-colored hills of Africa." Were they lion-colored? What color was a lion exactly?

Sebastian Rotella

Well, you know, that was the worst of it - this suspicion of not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar.

Joseph Conrad

the deficiency of the negro race is not as a result of the deluge number of bad leaders;rather, its is an outcome of the shortage of young negro intellect ready to lead a revolutionary africa.

victor adeagbo

To understand a woman, a man had to peel away layer after layer of words, much as one must peel away an onion to get at the desired part.

Tamar Myers

If literacy was natural, the word ‘illiteracy’ would not exist.

T.K. Naliaka

Even a little practical working familiarity with cattle goes a long way in Africa, but how many international relations studies include this?

T.K. Naliaka

The unschooled European mind, inclined to rational reduction, to pigeonholing and simplification, readily pushes everything African into a single bag and is content with facile stereotypes.

Ryszard Kapuściński

It's a lot like the Wild West out here... just with tea shops instead of saloons. Wild West Sahara, that is.

T.K. Naliaka

We are relatives at the village and yet we become strangers in the city

Thabo Katlholo

He was enraged and bitter and hoped for a personal meeting with Sarkozy where he would recount to him France's colonial history in Africa and make him see reasons why her policy of assimilation was a voyage to the destruction of Africa, its people, land, culture and sense of belonging.

S.A. David

We must act now to prevent further spread of EBOLA VIRUS. If we do not act collectively, EBOLA VIRUS will wipe all whole populations and generations into their grave. The call to action is now.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Though they were not familiar with the expression,to paraphrase the saying, when any country in the Sahel sneezes, the rest of the region catches pneumonia, the men there would have clicked their tongues and ruefully nodded their heads that 'woolayi' this was the truth.

T.K. Naliaka

I am the Mud Hut I Grew Upon

Thabo Katlholo

Africa is a huge continent; it would take several lifetimes of thousands of researchers testing in hundreds of languages to collect a valid sample of anything, especially IQ. Most Africans do their schooling in a second language, not their mother tongue. How many people would accept to be tested for their IQ level not in their primary language?

T.K. Naliaka

Huh. What a dope! Wait till Mom hears about this. He's so in trouble now. You know how crazy she gets about malaria.

T.K. Naliaka

The sea has testified that Africa and Europe have kissed

Válgame

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Africa Quotes

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