In the Castle of My Skin Quotes

“The darkness brought a strange kind of release, and you wished secretly in your heart that darkness would descend on the whole earth so that you could get a chance to see how much energy there was stored in your little self. You could get a chance to leave the cage. You would be free.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“A sailor called Christopher followed his mistake and those who come later have added theirs. Now he's dead, and as some say of the dead, safe and sound in the legacy of the grave. 'Tis a childish saying, for they be yet present with the living. (211)”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“The newspaper was always behind the news, not in front. You shouldn't ever go to the papers for information. They usually printed what they thought people wanted to see, and they had no explanation to give. It wasn't the king they saw. That wasn't the king at all. It was the king's shadow.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“... it didn't seem I could know it until I had lived it.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“Language was a kind of passport. You could go where you like if you had a clean record. p.155”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“Some hours ago we had discovered a giant. Now we had discovered a man. The giant was the man, but being a man he could no longer be a giant. The man had undermined the giant.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“If you tell have of them that work in those places that they have somethin' to do with Africa they'd piss straight in your face."

But why you goin' to tell a man that for," said Mr. Foster, "Why tell a man he's somebody brother when he ain't?"

"'Tis true," said Bob's father, "no man like to know he black." (p.102)”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“Times goin' change again an' things too, and that great British Empire goin' change too, 'cause time ain't got nothin' to do with these empires. God don't like ugly, an' whenever these big great empires starts to get ugly with the thing they does the Almighty puts His hands down once an' for all. He tell them without talkin', fellows, you had your day. (p.101)”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“These colonial governors, who were not always very educated or even very educable, could convince themselves that what was merely a temporary privilege should become a permanent right. (p.97)”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“If you ask him for a shilling, or two or three shillings, he'll give freely freely, but if he know that he got to spend a few hundred dollars, which is no more than three shillings compare to what he got, boys, he will cry buckets of tears.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“They had the unlettered man's respect for the written word. There was something formidable, even sacred, about a book. Only truth, it seemed, could be put in print.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“Tis only right he say that every man should own his own piece o' land at some time or other. 'Tis the ambition of every man to do that same said thing, an' he say it ain't only poor, simple people like you an' me, but 'tis the way the big folks think too.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“He had been seen by another. He had become a part of the other's world, and therefore no longer in complete control of his own. The eye was another kind of cage. When it saw you the lid came down, and you were trapped.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“Was it like that with other people? Life went on flowing happily or stupidly like a sea, while here in one spot something tremendous was happening.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“It was a big thing to be a king. It meant that you were getting the feeling that you lived in a big room all by yourself where no one could see you and you were your own man. Free and alone.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“They watched each other at times as a cat would watch a mouse, playfully but seriously. The inspector smiled and the teacher smiled back, and the cat in each smiled too.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“If you ain't native to a place, you have a better chance of becoming a gentleman in it.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“When the poor man loose control of the best in himself... it ain't his fault at all, it is the fault of people who go 'round making poppits of other poor people.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“Whatever was said or done, I knew what I wanted; and that was to be a boy among the boys.”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

“Language was a kind of passport. You could go where you like if you had a clean record. You could say what you like if you know how to say it. It didn’t matter whether you felt everything you said. You had language, good, big words to make up for what you didn’t feel. And if you were really educated, and you could command the language like a captain on a ship,”
― George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin