Black Orpheus Quotes

“What then did you expect when you unbound the gag that muted those black mouths? That they would chant your praises? Did you think that when those heads that our fathers had forcibly bowed down to the ground were raised again, you would find adoration in their eyes?”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Black Orpheus

“with little steps of caterpillar rain
with little steps like mouthfuls of milk
with little steps like ball-bearings
with little steps like seismic shocks
Yams in the soil stride like gaps of stars
- Aimé Césaire, Les armes miraculeuses: tam-tam II.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Black Orpheus

“This obsessing heart which does not correspond
To my language, nor to my customs,
And on which encroach, like a clinging-root,
Borrowed feelings and the customs
Of Europe, feel this suffering
And this despair—equal to no other—
Of ever taming with words from France
This heart which came to me from Sénegal.
- Haitian poet”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Black Orpheus