"Kodjo Fi was a selfish and bullying man, whom no decent woman ought to have married. He got on marvellously with his two other wives but they were three of a feather"

"Now all I must do is to try and prepare myself for another pregnancy, for it seems this is the reason why I was created . . . to be pregnant for nine of the twelve months of every year. . . . Or is there a way out of it at all? And where does this road lie?"

"One’s yams reflect the sum total of one’s life. And mine look wretched enough.”"

"his male business about who begat whom"

"great among kings peerless among men beloved by God because he was the last of the great conquerors"

"Well, I'm sorry you all feel uncomfortable about mybehaviour, but I cannot pretend. I cannot lie to myself and everybody else in this village"

"“But what she also came to know was that someone somewhere would always see in any kind of difference, an excuse to be mean.”"

"the story of him who, by his exploits, surpassed even Alexander the Great Maghan Sundiata the man of many names against whom sorcery could avail nothing"

"dearly loved, despite the fact that he’d married [her] mother, a woman with an Ewu daughter”"

"“a two thousand year old tradition held on the first day of rainy season”"

"At such times he would think, 'What will I do if she does not love me as much as I love her?' A terrible reply came from his heart, 'Kill her."

"became a different creature that day, not so human”"

"the only one good enough to learn the Great Mystic Points”"

"Before the white man became universally disliked for his mental outlook, it was there. The white man found only too many people who looked different. That was all that outraged the receivers of his discrimination, that he applied the technique of the wild jiggling dance and the rattling tin cans to anyone who was not a white man."

"When no one wanted to bury a dead body, they called the missionaries; not that the missionaries really liked to be involved with mankind, but that they had been known to go into queer places because of their occupation. They would do that but they did not often like you to walk into their yard. They preferred to talk to you outside the fence."

"The man who slowly walked away from them was a king in their society. A day had come when he had decided that he did not need any kingship other than the kind of wife everybody would loathe from the bottom of their hearts."

"There had never been a time in his life when he had not thought a thought and felt it immediately bound to the deep center of the earth, then bound back to his heart again—with a reply. Previously, the stillness with which he held himself together to hear the reply had always been disrupted by people. People were horrible to him because they imagined that their thoughts and deeds were concealed when he could see and hear everything, even their bloodstreams and the beating of their hearts. If they knew all that he knew, would they not have torn him to shreds some time ago, to keep the world the way it was when secrets and evil had the same names?”"

"There was something Dikeledi called sham. It made people believe they were more important than the normal image of humankind. She had grown up surrounded by sham."

"At least, the present was simple. But there was a depth of secret activity in him like that in his mind like that long, low line of black, boiling cloud. There was a clear blue sky in his mind that calmly awaited the storm in this heart that calmly as the storm in his and when all had been said and done, this earth would be washed clean of all the things he hated. He slowly continues his walk home, his gaze turned toads the horizon. It was very beautiful.”"

"You can bring life, and when you get old, that ability becomes something else even greater, more dangerous and unstable”"

"It never stopped the tin cans rattling, but it kept the victim of the tin cans sane. No one by shouting, screaming or spitting could un-Bushman her. There was only one thing left, to find out how bushmen were going to stay alive on the earth, because no one wanted them to, except perhaps as the slaves and down-trodden dogs of the Batswana. That half she would be left alone to solve."

"a king in their society”"

"It feels like either you are coming with me or I am staying with you"

"On the beach women in blue and yellow saris stand with their feet in the sea. Later, daylight draws away from the stone buildings like water and we see it happen. We are the witnesses to it"

"You must punish me now in front of the whole community. It is the only way. We rise from the table and his English comes apart in his mouth."

"Maybe life had presented him with too many, destinies, but he knew that he would accept them all and fulfill them. Who else had been born with such clear, sharp eyes that cut through all pretense and sham? Who else was a born leader of men, yet at the same time acted out his own, strange inner perceptions, independent of the praise or blame of men?"

"Do I look like I’m taking photos of you?"

"Not like those of their children who later got caught up in the entangled web of industrialisation. Adah’s Ma had no experience of having to keep up mortgage payments: she never knew what it was to have a family car, or worry about its innards; she had no worries about pollution, the population explosion or race. Was it surprising, therefore, that she was happy, being unaware of the so-called joys of civilisation and all its pitfalls?”"

"(Chapter 1, Page 15)"

"One might think on this evidence that Africans treated their children badly. But to Adah’s people and to Adah herself, this was not so at all; it was the custom. Children, especially girls, were taught to be very useful very early in life, and this had its advantages. For instance, Adah learned very early to be responsible for herself. Nobody was interested in her for her own sake, only in the money she would fetch, and the housework she could do and Adah, happy at being given this opportunity of survival, did not waste time thinking about its rights or wrongs. She had to survive.”"

"(Chapter 1, Page 7)"

"(Chapter 2, Page 19)"

"She felt eight when she was being directed by her dream, for a younger child would not be capable of so many mischiefs. Thinking back on it all now that she was grown up, she was sorry for her parents. But it was their own fault; they should not have had her in the first place, and that would have saved a lot of people a lot of headaches.”"

"The man who slowly walked away from them was a king in their society. A day had come when he had decided that he did not need any kinship other than the kind of wife everybody would loathe from the bottom of their hearts. He had planned for that loathing in secret; they had absorbed the shocks in secret. When everything was exposed, they had only one alternative: to keep their prejudice and pretend Maru had died."

"like someone with a highly contagious disease”"

"(Narrator, p. 175)"

"Then the thought suddenly struck her. Yes, she would go to school."

"This old friend of Adah's paid for the taxi that took her home from Camden Town because he thought she was still with her husband."

"(Narrator, p. 93)"

"Hunger drove Francis to work as a clerical officer in the post office. Adah's hopes rose. This might save the marriage after all."

"(Narrator, p. 9)"

"(Narrator, p. 162)"

"London, having killed Adah's congregational God, created instead a personal God who loomed large and really alive."

"(Narrator, p. 141)"

"(Narrator, p. 151)"

"Did she not feel totally fulfilled when she had completed the manuscript, just as if it were another baby she had had?"

"(Narrator, p. 166)"