Crossing the Mangrove Quotes

“How true! Life's problems are like trees. We see the trunk, we see the branches and the leaves. But we can't see the roots, hidden deep down under the ground. And yet it is their shape and nature and how far they dig into the slimy humus to search for water that we need to know. Then perhaps we would understand.”
― Maryse Condé, Crossing the Mangrove

“Solitude is my companion. She has cradled and nourished me. She has never left me up to this very day. People talk and talk but they don’t know what it’s like to emerge burning hot from the stone-cold womb of your mother, to say farewell to her from the very first moment you enter this world.”
― Maryse Condé, Crossing the Mangrove

“You don't cross a mangrove. You'd spike yourself on the roots of the mangrove trees. You'd be sucked down and suffocated by the brackish mud.”
― Maryse Condé, Crossing the Mangrove

“There was no denying the fact that the death of sugarcane was sounding the knell for something else in the country. What can we call it?”
― Maryse Condé, Crossing the Mangrove