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The way the media cycle works, the way the news works, and the way people's attention span works, is that we only learn that people exist when there is crisis.
Edwidge Danticat
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Edwidge Danticat
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: January 19
Author
Novelist
Writer
Port au Prince
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Cycle
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Cycles
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News
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More quotes by Edwidge Danticat
We try to keep the beautiful memories, but other things from the past creep up on us.
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All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love, like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too.
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Once you're involved in the work, it's really just you and the characters and the words.
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People think that there is a country there that these people are only around when they are on CNN. I don't think that's limited to Haiti.
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Vodou is one of the religions practiced in Haiti, a rich religion for the people.
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And the fact that Haiti was occupied for 19 years by the United States, from 1915 to 1934.
Edwidge Danticat
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
I can't wait for both my daughters to be old enough to read all my books. I loved it every time I saw my parents acting like more than just my parents. And I'm looking forward to that with my daughters too. I am looking forward to having them discover me as someone completely other than their mother.
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We've had fiction from the time of cave drawings. I think fiction, storytelling, and narrative in general will always exist in some form.
Edwidge Danticat
I think all artists are looking for a subject or are sometimes unsure of their subject, but immigrant artists bring another culture to that and they bring also the place where the original culture meets the new culture.
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There is a frustration too, that at moments when there's not a coup, when there are not people in the streets, that the country disappears from people's consciousness.
Edwidge Danticat
America's relationship with Haiti has always been very complicated. I often say to people, Before we came to America, America came to us in the form of the American occupation from 1915 to 1934.
Edwidge Danticat
I see the sharp inequality between how Haitian and Cuban refugees are treated in Florida. Both groups come here because their lives are equally desperate. But on arrival, the Haitians are incarcerated, and some are immediately repatriated, whereas Cubans get to stay and are eligible for citizenship.
Edwidge Danticat
It is the calm and silent waters that drown you.
Edwidge Danticat
There [Haiti] were also leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose motto was, Cut their heads off, burn their houses.
Edwidge Danticat
I am very timid about speaking for the collective. I can say what I see, I can say what I've heard, I can say what I feel, but I can't speak for - no one can speak for - 10 million people, and it takes away something from them if you make yourself their voice.
Edwidge Danticat
When I meet people for the first time, I always put on my glasses because I feel like that's a little something extra between me and them. It's like the Laurence Dunbar poem We Wear the Mask.
Edwidge Danticat
When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.
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It's not easy to start over in a new place,' he said. 'Exile is not for everyone. Someone has to stay behind, to receive the letters and greet family members when they come back.
Edwidge Danticat
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
