Imbolo Mbue Quotes

People in this country, always worrying about how to eat, they pay someone good money to tell them: Eat this, don’t eat that. If you don’t know how to eat, what else can you know how to do in this world?

Our people say no condition is permanent, Mr. Edwards. Good times must come to an end, just like bad times, whether we want it or not.

indeed, bad news has a way of slithering into good days and making a mockery of complacent joys.

But the Universe gives us different sources of Love to unite us all as One. Who are we to decide what the source of our Love should be at any given time? Love is Love, and at any given point we have everything we need.

Don’t worry about things that might never happen,

Home will never go away Home will be here when you come back You may go to bring back fortune You may go to escape misfortune You may even go, just because you want to go But when you come back We hope you’ll come back Home will still be here.

Despite comporting ourselves for decades, despite never resorting to beastly deeds, we hadn’t succeeded in persuading our tormentors that we were people who deserve of the privilege of living our lives as we wished.

It's the fear that kills us, Leah," Jende said. "Sometimes it happens and it's not even as bad as the fear. That is what I have learned in this life. It is the fear.

Why should a man intentionally live his life with one kind of anxiety followed by another?

His years on earth had taught him that good things happen to those who honor the kindheartedness of others.

listening is far more enjoyable than fighting to be heard.

Rejoicing with others in their times of joy and your times of sorrow is a mark of true love,

while there existed great towns and cities all over the world, there was a certain kind of pleasure, a certain type of adventurous and audacious childhood, that only New York City could offer a child.

a man’s anger is often no more than a safe haven for his cowardice.

Different things are important to different people.

How could anyone have so much happiness and unhappiness skillfully wrapped up together?

I don't know if I can continue suffering like this just because I want to live in America.

America was passing her by. New York City was passing her by. Bridges and billboards bearing smiling people were passing her by. Skyscrapers and brownstones were rushing by. Fast. Too fast. Forever.

Someday, when you’re old, you’ll see that the ones who came to kill us and the ones who’ll run to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, they all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.

Anyone can go to the shop and buy anything and give to anyone, he told Liomi when the boy asked him for the umpteenth time why he couldn’t get even a little toy truck. The true measure of whether somebody really loves you, he lectured, is what they do for you with their hands and say to you with their mouth and think of you in their heart.

That’s exactly the problem! People don’t want to open their eyes and see the Truth because the illusion suits them. As long as they’re fed whatever lies they want to hear they’re happy, because the Truth means nothing to them.

Humans are mortal and so are the systems they build

It’s the fear that kills us, Leah,” Jende said. “Sometimes it happens and it is not even as bad as the fear. That is what I have learned in this life. It is the fear.

the problem is not some system. It is us. Each of us. We've got to fix ourselves before we can fix a whole damn country.

But my father used to say we can’t do only what we’re at ease with, we must do what we ought to do.

A smile that does not originate from my heart hurts my mouth,

People act as if things in America have to be better than things everywhere else. America doesn’t have the best of everything,

In America today, having documents is not enough. Look at how many people with papers are struggling. Look at how even some Americans are suffering. They were born in this country.

My advice to someone like you is to always stay close to the gray area and keep yourself and your family safe. Stay away from any place where you can run into police-that's the advice I give to you and to all young black men in this country. The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men. Black men and police are palm oil and water. You understand me, eh?

But if America says they don’t want us in their country, you think I’m going to keep on begging them for the rest of my life? You think I’m going to sleep in a church? Never. Not for one day. You can go and sleep on the church floor all you want. The day you get tired, you can come and meet me and the children in Limbe. Nonsense!

... if everyone only did what they ought to do, who would do the things no one thought they had to do? What did enjoyment have to do with duty?

Ah, Neni!" Jende said, laughing. "American women do not use love potions." "Thats what you think?" Neni said, laughing, yoo. "They use it, oh. They call it lingerie.

Germany was his favorite place to live, he said, because, even as a child, he could tell how much the Germans loved Americans, and it felt great to be loved for his nationality.

And yet, despite this portrait of a self assured woman, Cindy seemed to have a near obsession with being where everyone was and doing what everyone was doing.

bad news has a way of slithering into good days and making a mockery of complacent joys.

I want to give the children simple things. Clean water. Clean air. Clean food. Let them soil it if they like it dirty—how dare anyone refuse them this right?

She had the fortitude of the sun—no matter how dark and thick the clouds, she was confident she could melt them and emerge in full glory.

How is it that their government, which is supposed to be their servant, is acting as their master?

But if I were to spend ten thousand years worrying about all that could happen to them, what difference would it make?

we wake up every day and do everything we can so you can have a good life and become somebody one day, and you repay us by going to school and playing in class?

The true measure of whether somebody really loves you, he lectured, is what they do for you with their hands and say to you with their mouth and think of you in their heart.

Someone laughed at one end of the subway car, a sweet laugh that on any other day would have made him look around because he loved to see the faces from which happy sounds came.

a great childhood there, my sister, Ceci,

You know what I'm realizing? he said. Living is painful. That's why we so often forget that we're dying, we're too busy catering to our pains. I think it's one of nature's tricks--it needs us to not dwell on the fact that we're dying, otherwise we'd spend our days eating low-hanging fruits from trees and splashing around in clear rivers and laughing while our pointless lives pass us by.

At times like these, we thought little of how many years of waiting still lay ahead; we thought mostly of how blessed we were, what boundless promise life bore. Such moments reminded us that, no matter how long the night, morning always comes.

Our grandfathers, however, had no interest in losing ownership of their lives—every one of them had turned down Pexton’s offer and returned to the thrill of killing for food as trees were felled all over the valley to make room for the oil field and pipelines and Gardens.

That’s exactly the problem! People don’t want to open their eyes and see the Truth because the illusion suits them. As long as they’re fed whatever lies they want to hear they’re happy, because the Truth means nothing to them. Look at my parents—they’re struggling under the weight of so many pointless pressures, but if they could ever free themselves from this self-inflicted oppression they would find genuine happiness. Instead, they continue to go down a path of achievements and accomplishments and material success and shit that means nothing because that’s what America’s all about, and now they’re trapped. And they don’t get it!

She’d seen them on the news, compassionate Americans talking about how the United States should be more welcoming to people who came in peace. She believed these kindhearted people, like Natasha, would never betray them, and she wanted to tell Jende this, that the people of Judson Memorial Church loved immigrants, that their secret was safe with Natasha. But she also knew it would be futile reasoning with a raging man, so she decided to sit quietly with her head bowed as he unleashed a verbal lashing, as he called her a stupid idiot and a bloody fool. The man who had promised to always take care of her was standing above her vomiting a parade of insults, spewing out venom she never thought he had inside him. For the first time in a long love affair, she was afraid he would beat her. She was almost certain he would beat her. And if he had, she would have known that it was not her Jende who was beating her but a grotesque being created by the sufferings of an American immigrant life.

Winston may be right,” Neni said after Jende told her about their conversation, “but if a river has carried a load halfway downstream, why not let it take it all the way to the ocean?” Jende agreed. Their fate was in the hands of others—what use would it be to get another opinion and find themselves weighing bleak option against bleak option? They would stay with Bubakar; it was all going to work out.

People hanging out in bars made no sense to Neni. Why would anyone want to stand in a crowded place for hours, screaming at the top of their voice to chat with a friend, when they could sit comfortably in their own home and talk to their friend in a calm voice? Why would they choose to sit in a dark space, consuming drinks that sold at the grocery store for a quarter of the bar's price? It was an off way of spending time and money.

We’ve never been a close family, so I’ve never been able to see him as much more than an absent provider who’s going through the motions for the sake of his family.” “It’s not easy,” Jende said, shaking his head as he turned onto Elm Street, where the dentist’s office was located. “Who is it not easy for?” “For you, for your father, for every child, every parent, for everybody. It’s just not easy, this life here in this world.

If the Edwards boys were fazed by the obvious signs of poverty in the apartment (the worn-out brown carpet; the retro TV sitting on a coffee table across from the sofa; the fan in the corner struggling to do the job of an AC; the fake flowers hanging on the wall and doing nothing to brighten the living room), they did not show it. They acted as if they were in any of the apartments they visited on Park or Madison, as if it were just a different kind of beautiful apartment in a different kind of nice neighborhood.

As far as Immigration is concerned, there are many things that are illegal and many that are gray, and by 'gray' I mean the things that are illegal but which the government doesn't want to spend time worrying about. You understand me, abi? My advice to someone like you is to always stay close to the gray area and keep yourself and your family safe. Stay away from any place where you can run into police- that's the advice I give to you and to all young black men in this country. The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men' (74).

She decried the contemporary American definition of weary stranger as illegal alien. Remember when we welcomed our visitors at Ellis Island with lunch boxes? she asked to loud applause. And a free doctor’s checkup! someone in the back shouted. The church roared. Natasha smiled as she watched her congregants whispering among themselves. Sad, she said, shaking her head. Treating our friends in need of help the way we treat our enemies. Forgetting that we could find ourselves in search of a home someday, too. This bears no resemblance to the love the Bible speaks of, the love Jesus Christ preached about when he said we should love our neighbor as ourselves.

She seemed nice, but she was most likely one of those American women whose knowledge of Africa was based largely on movies and National Geographic and thirdhand information from someone who knew someone who had been to somewhere on the continent, usually Kenya or South Africa. Whenever Jende met such women (at Liomi’s school; at Marcus Garvey Park; in the livery cab he used to drive), they often said something like, oh my God, I saw this really crazy show about such-and-such in Africa. Or, my cousin/friend/neighbor used to date an African man, and he was a really nice guy. Or, even worse, if they asked him where in Africa he was from and he said Cameroon, they proceeded to tell him that a friend’s daughter once went to Tanzania or Uganda. This comment used to irk him until Winston gave him the perfect response: Tell them your friend’s uncle lives in Toronto. Which was what he now did every time someone mentioned some other African country in response to him saying he was from Cameroon. Oh yeah, he would say in response to something said about Senegal, I watched a show the other day about San Antonio. Or, one day I hope to visit Montreal. Or, I hear Miami is a nice city. And every time he did this, he cracked up inside as the Americans’ faces scrunched up in confusion because they couldn’t understand what Toronto/San Antonio/Montreal/Miami had to do with New York.

And yet, all through the land, willows would weep for the end of many dreams.

The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men. Black men and police are palm oil and water. You understand me, eh?

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig-trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

American overseer at Gardens. Sometimes we used English words when we played, saying things like “who cares,” and “absolutely not,” and “holy shit,” to impress one another.

they continue to go down a path of achievements and accomplishments and material success and shit that means nothing because that’s what America’s all about, and now they’re trapped. And they don’t get it!

She says nothing, in the way mothers say everything while saying nothing.

Die Amerikaner, die Europäer, jede einzelne Überseeperson, die je einen Fuß auf unseren Boden gesetzt hat - alle wollen das Gleiche", stellt einer der Dörfler fest. "Zwischen denen, die kamen, um uns zu töten, und jenen, die jetzt zu unserer Rettung eilen, gibt es keinen Unterschied. Ganz egal, was sie vorgeben, sie alle sind überzeugt, dass sie die Macht besitzen, uns das zu nehmen oder zu geben, was ihr unendliches Bedürfnis stillt.

insouciance.

exhorted

Someday, when you're old, you'll see the the ones who came to kill us and the ones who'll run to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, the all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig-trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. Deuteronomy 8:7–9

The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men. Black men and police are palm oil and water.

What happened will never unhappen.

A man's anger is often no more than a safe haven for his cowardice.

there's no better place to feel as if you belong, and yet terribly alone, than New York.

we can't do only what we're at ease with, we must do what we ought to do.

Made him suffer for her honor. She sewed up his lips so others would not speak ill of her for allowing him to tear apart the village with a vile tale.

How could we respond to such drivel except with slaps?

seeing her eyes aglow again was like stepping out of a smoky kitchen.

They believe in a Spirit in the sky when ours lives within them.

The people around me seem to have no appreciation for this distinct orderliness of their world.

For the first time in over twenty years of life, he was happy. But he knew that he couldn’t remain in that village: a man belongs with his people, among those who share his ancestors, not with strangers, no matter how beautiful their land.

This is a place where people stand in lines for everything, those who arrived first standing at the front, no one paying attention to who is oldest or neediest.

Only with him did I come to realize how much noise there is in the world, and how marvelous it is not to be a part of it.

I would have understood why you raved and yelled and insulted whenever you though someone wasn't rising up and saying what needed to be said, or doing what needed to be done.

Niet omdat haar angst was afgenomen, maar omdat de tijd er goed in is dingen over te laten gaan.

Its regurgitation in newspapers of record and blogs of repute would be another reminder why the American society as a whole could never be call itself highbrow, why its easy availability of of stories on the private lives of others was turning adults, who would otherwise be enriching their minds with worthwhile knowledge, into juveniles who needed the satisfaction of knowing that others were more pathetic than them.

Un jour, je te le dis, on ne verra plus de mexicains traverser la frontière... -Et les Américains s'enfuiront au Mexique! répondit Jende. (p. 360)

become invalid and there would be no green card? How could he have possibly explained his asylum application? Would there have been a way to convince Mr. Edwards that he was an honest man, a very honest man, actually, but one who was now telling a thousand tales to Immigration just so he could one day become an American citizen and live in this great nation forever?

Who traveled to America only to return to a future of nothingness in Cameroon after a mere three months? Not young men like him, not people facing a future of poverty and despondency in their own country.

Betty called minutes after he left. “Now I understand why some women choose to marry other women,” she said

In many different ways it would be an unprecedented plague, a calamity like the one that had befallen the Egyptians in the Old Testament. The only difference between the Egyptians then and the Americans now, Jende reasoned, was that the Egyptians had been cursed by their own wickedness. They had called an abomination upon their land by worshipping idols and enslaving their fellow humans, all so they could live in splendor. They had chosen riches over righteousness, rapaciousness over justice. The Americans had done no such thing. And

if God cuts off your fingers, He will teach you how to eat with your toes.

I work as a servant to people, driving them all over, the whole day, sometimes the whole week, answering yes sir, yes madam, bowing down even to a little child...I lower myself more than many men would ever lower themselves.

In Limbe, Liomi and Timba would have many things they would not have had in America, but they would lose far too many things. They would lose the opportunity to grow up in a magnificent land of uninhibited dreamers. They would lose the chance to be awed and inspired by amazing things happening in the country, incredible inventions and accomplishments by men and women who look like them. They would be deprived of freedoms, rights, and privileges that Cameroon could not give its children. They would lose unquantifiable benefits by leaving New York City, because while there existed great towns and cities all over the world, there was a certain kind of pleasure, a certain type of adventurous and audacious childhood, that only New York City could offer a child.

The Scripture that morning was from Genesis 18, the story of the weary visitors who visited Abraham and Abraham, not knowing they were angels, treated them with kindness. Natasha preached about the treatment of weary strangers in America. She decried the contemporary American definition of weary stranger as illegal alien.

where he’d seen a most beautiful sunset that had brought tears to his eyes and left him humbled by the beauty of the Universe, the magnificent gift that is Presence on Earth, the vanity that is the pursuit of anything but Truth and Love.

America might be flawed, but it was still a beautiful country.

Why are you guys acting like little children? Life is hard everywhere. You know that maybe it will get better one day. Maybe it will not get better. Nobody knows tomorrow. But we keep on trying.

Neni looked at Betty and her gap tooth that divided her mouth into two equally beautiful halves. The woman

It was for the boundless opportunities they would be denied, the kind of future she was almost denied in her father’s house. She was going to fight for her children, and for herself,

You say this country don pass you, eh? I believe you. Sometimes this country pass me, too. America can be hell, I know. Man nova see suffer until the day ei enter America, make I tell you.

I’m not ashamed of wanting many things in life. Tomorrow when my daughter grows up I will tell her to want whatever she wants, the same thing I will tell my son.

Let me put this another way: Are you happy with who you’re becoming?

She worried that she might have too little in common with her friends, being that she was now so different from them, being that she had tasted a different kind of life and been transformed positively and negatively in so many different ways, being that life had expanded and contracted her in ways they could never imagine.