The River Has Roots Quotes

“But that is the nature of grammar—it is always tense, like an instrument, aching for release, longing to transform present into past into future, is into was into will.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“Everyone wants to see a witch punish someone for stealing from her. A witch is a kind of justice in the world. It makes for a fine story. No one wants to admit the truth, for all it stares them plainly in the face."

"What's that?"

"Steal from a woman long enough, and a witch is what she'll become.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“Bel,” she said helplessly, around the fire in her throat. “Queen of ducks and angels. You shall have poems written to you with a quill on fire. You shall have songs sung to you by enchanted harps. Whole branches of grammar will be invented only to praise you.” “Ysabel Hawthorn,” she said, and she could not keep the heat from her voice, “demand better than to be worshipped by a crumb.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“(What is a river but an open throat; what is water but a voice?)”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“Most music is the result of some intimacy with an instrument. One wraps one’s mouth around a whistle and pours one’s breath into it; one all but lays one’s cheek against a violin; and skin to skin is holy drummer’s kiss. But a harp is played most like a lover: you learn to lean its body against your breast, find those places of deepest, stiffest tension with your hands and finger them into quivering release.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“I was an elder sister before I was a wife, and for longer, and that’s a shape I can’t easily shake.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“The river may conjugate everything it touches, but the willows translate its grammar into their growth, and hold it slow and steady in their bark.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“So long as you can hear the waters, everything seems possible: that the sun is the moon, that a star is a cloud, that dusk is dawn, and everything is both hallowed and haunted at the same time.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“One understands that one's life is about to irrevocably change by having embarked on the journey, by the rigorous of the journey itself, and by all the mysteries attendant on arrival”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“What is a river but an open throat; what is water but a voice?”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“Ysabel Hawthorn,” she said, and she could not keep the heat from her voice, “demand better than to be worshipped by a crumb.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“Children muttering over their schoolbooks today think little of grammar. Grammar is tedious, difficult, slow; grammar is a shackle placed on language, correcting who into whom, can I into may I. Grammar and grammarians are constables, sternly watching while you split infinitives, narrowing their eyes at spliced commas while smacking semi-coloned truncheons against their palms. But that is not the truth of grammar. There was a time when grammar was wild—when it shifted shapes and unleashed new forms out of old. Grammar, like gramarye, like grimoire. What is magic but a change in the world? What is conjugation but a transformation, one thing into another? She runs; she ran;”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“O what is crueller than the frost,” they murmured”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“I’ve travelled light, I’ve travelled dark, and I’m still on my way,”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“Las criaturas que, hoy en día, mascullan sobre sus libros de texto no prestan atención a la gramática. La gramática es tediosa, difícil, lenta; la gramática es un grillete para el lenguaje que te cambia el “por qué” por “porqué” y el “le” por “les”. La gramática y las personas que la practican son alguaciles que te vigilan con aire ceñudo mientras conjugas verbos, y entornan los ojos al ver tus subordinadas mientras se golpean las palmas de las manos con sus porras de punto y coma.
No obstante, esa no es la verdad de la gramática. Hubo un tiempo en que era salvaje, en el que cambiaba formas y extraía nuevos usos de los antiguos. Gramática, de “gramarye”, de grimorio. ¿Qué es la magia, sino un cambio en el mundo?¿Qué es la conjugación sino una transformación de algo en otra cosa?”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“Their friends run a mill, and share a history, and they all spend time together with a generous hand.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots