Coconut Quotes

“Uncle wanted to eat his pie and then have us feel sorry for him because it was making him fat.”
― Kopano Matlwa, Coconut

“You will find, Ofilwe, that the people you strive so hard to be like will one day reject you because as much as you may pretend, you are not one of their own. Then you will turn back, but there too you will find no acceptance, for those you once rejected will no longer recognize the thing you have become. So far, too far to return. So much, too much you have changed. Stuck between two worlds, shunned by both.”
― Kopano Matlwa, Coconut

“I am not used to hating. Hate sits heavy on my heart. It reeks. I can smell it rotting my insides and I taste it on my tongue.”
― Kopano Matlwa, Coconut

“You are the backstage crew in the drama of their lives. If they need you, they do not know it and do not care. Open your eyes.”
― Kopano Matlwa, Coconut

“I do not know why people here have taken upon themselves the duty of making attempts at speaking to me. I work hard to keep the ‘don’t speak to me’ look on my face and yet it seems they read it as ‘please speak to me’….It really is very inconsiderate. Sometimes one just wants to be alone with one’s thoughts and not have to deal with bad breath and body odour so early in the morning.”
― Kopano Matlwa, Coconut

“Tshepo reckons that it is inevitable that one’s circle of friends will become smaller as one grows older. He reasons that when we begin we are similar, like two glasses of water sitting side by side on a clean tray. There is very little that differentiates us. We are simple beings whose interests do not extend beyond playing touch and kicking balls.

However, like the two glasses of water forgotten on a tray in the reading room, we start to collect bits. Bits of fluff, bits of a broken beetle wing, bits of bread, bits of pollen, bits of shed epithelial cells, bits of hair, bits of toilet paper, bits of airborne fungal organisms, bits of bits. All sorts of bits. No two combinations the same. Just like with the glasses of water, Environment, jealous of our fundamentality, bombards our basic minds with complexity. So we become frighteningly dissimilar, until there is very little that holds us together.”
― Kopano Matlwa, Coconut

“–Vull escriure [...], vull parlar. Vull dir aquelles coses que la gent té por de sentir. Aquelles coses a les quals no es vol encarar. A les pàgines d’un llibre, a la intimitat de la seva ment, on se sentin una mica menys vulnerables, parlaré amb ells, molt després que hagin tancat el llibre, conversarem, els meus lectors i jo, i ho sabran.”
― matlwa-kopano, Coconut