Quote

If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.

Edwidge Danticat

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edwidge Danticat
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: January 19
Author
Novelist
Writer
Port au Prince
Remember
Carved
Need
Remembering
Needs
Grandmother
Letters
Worth
Name
Names
Woman

More quotes by Edwidge Danticat

Image
My models were oral, were storytellers. Like my grandmothers and my aunts. It's true, a lot of people in my life were not literate in a formal sense, but they were storytellers. So I had this experience of just watching somebody spin a tale off the top of her head. I loved that.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
I very much love a physical book myself. I think people who have had this experience of also seeing a book come together, from sitting down and writing the first word, to holding the binding in your hand, we have a deeper sentimental attachment to it than others might.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
Pretend that this is a time of miracles and we believe in them.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
Whole interaction between the storyteller and the listeners had a very powerful influence on me.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
There is something human about the way people react to and identify with suffering. There's a lot more empathy in the world than we perhaps realize.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
Language is such a powerful thing. After the earthquake, I went to Haiti and people were talking about how [they] described this feeling of going through an earthquake. People really didn't have the vocabulary - before we had hurricanes. I'd talk with people and they'd say, We have to name it it has to have a name.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
In the 1980s, when people were just beginning to talk about AIDS, there were just a few categories of those who were at high risk: homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, and Haitians. We were the only ones identified by nationality.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
In Haiti you had the Duvaliers for 29 years and they were very well supported by the United States.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
Vodou is one of the religions practiced in Haiti, a rich religion for the people.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
Even when I think of writing fiction, it's being kind of a liar, a storyteller, a weaver, and there's that sense of how much of this is your life. The story is a way you unravel your life from behind a mask.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
...women, brave as stars at dawn
Edwidge Danticat
Image
It's interesting to see people overcome things. Because if you didn't overcome, you wouldn't be writing it.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
Creating these messes that go from administration to administration and then you swoop in and clean them up - with that heroic Delta force - people not realizing that they were always there but doing different things than what we see them doing at the moment.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
After writing fiction for so long, I like the discovery element of nonfiction, in the sense that when you find the right information, it feels like gold.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
No one will love you more than you love your pain.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
To start with, for example this year, 2004, is the bicentennial of Haitian independence.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
I was able to not fold and go in a corner because I had my writing as therapy, but also as my tool for struggle.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
We need literature because we wouldn’t fully know ourselves without it. We need good literature to be fully human.
Edwidge Danticat
Image
The more practice you have, the less stressful writing is.
Edwidge Danticat