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There [Haiti] were also leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose motto was, Cut their heads off, burn their houses.

Edwidge Danticat

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Edwidge Danticat
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: January 19
Author
Novelist
Writer
Port au Prince
Also
Houses
Like
Burn
Heads
Leaders
Whose
Jacques
Cutting
Jean
Leader
Haiti
House
Motto

More quotes by Edwidge Danticat

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In terms of the idea of long-term occupation - I have been reading a little bit more about this period - and you can see in that occupation are many lessons for the current occupation of Iraq. So we have these connections that go way back that people aren't aware of.
Edwidge Danticat
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Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.
Edwidge Danticat
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...women, brave as stars at dawn
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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.
Edwidge Danticat
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I'm just melancholy by nature, and a lot of that gets into my writing.
Edwidge Danticat
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The more practice you have, the less stressful writing is.
Edwidge Danticat
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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
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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
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Vodou is one of the religions practiced in Haiti, a rich religion for the people.
Edwidge Danticat
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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
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Whole interaction between the storyteller and the listeners had a very powerful influence on me.
Edwidge Danticat
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When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.
Edwidge Danticat
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I'm happy to be part of this chorus of people who are trying to tell more complex stories about Haiti.
Edwidge Danticat
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We try to keep the beautiful memories, but other things from the past creep up on us.
Edwidge Danticat
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I come from a place where breath, eyes, and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like a hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to
Edwidge Danticat
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It is the calm and silent waters that drown you.
Edwidge Danticat
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I'm not saying Cubans don't deserve asylum, but if it is a national security issue, there are people who are coming from Cuba on hijacked airplanes. Why isn't that a national security issue?
Edwidge Danticat
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I don't know what will happen to the physical book and what it will mean for authors. I worry whether it will mean people can still make their careers this way. Will whatever comes next allow people to be able to own their ideas and be able to take time to develop them?
Edwidge Danticat
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Wonderful thing about novels is that sometimes we read a novel and we know the person in the novel more than we know people in our own lives.
Edwidge Danticat
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Someone has said that nations have interests, they don't have friends, and you see that over and over in U.S. policy.
Edwidge Danticat