The Bridge of Beyond Quotes

“Behind one pain there is another. Sorrow is a wave without end. But the horse mustn't ride you, you must ride it.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“The place had a kind of mistery, as if, in some long distant past, it had been inhabited by men who knew how to rejoice in rivers, trees, and sky.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“And if we Negroes at the back of beyond honor our dead for nine days, it's so that the soul of the deceased should not be hurried in any way, so that it can detach itself gradually from its piece of earth, its chair, its favorite tree, and the faces of its friends, before going to contemplate the hidden side of the sun.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“However tall trouble is, man must make himself taller still, even if it means making stilts.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“... he would ask me a thousand little questions, just, he said, to sound out the future a little.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“It is always the same forest, always as dense as ever. And so, my son, put aside the branches as best you can, that's all.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“...the goods of he earth remain the earth's, and man does not own even the skin he is wrapped in. All he owns are the feelings of his heart.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“It may well be that all suffering, even the prickles in the canefields, are part of the glory of man”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“... and I think of the Negro's life and of its mystery. We have no more marks to guide us than the bird in the air or the fish in the water, and in the midst of this uncertainty we live, and some laugh and others sing.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“I loved the ox, and every day I congratulated myself on being of this world.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“Outside, the stars looked as if they were dancing around the moon, and it was as if all beauty and even life itself had taken refuge in the heavenly bodies.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“As we were talking, completely happy, thinking of nothing but our joy in being together, night suddenly fell, enveloping all the disorder of the world.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“After she'd eaten her custard I took her head in my lap, and she talked to me of the balance of nature and the planets, the permanence of the sky and the stars, and of suffering, which after all is only another way of existing.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“And the days went by, and I forgot I was a fallen acomat, and began to feel the beauty of my own two woman's legs again, and started to walk.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“... all these words, this laughter, these marks of attention, helped to lift me back in the saddle, to hold my horse's bridle with a firm grip.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“At this very moment I have left my grief at the bottom of the river. It is going downstream, and will enshroud another heart than mine. Talk to me about life, Grandmother. Talk to me about that.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“But man's mishaps have never made the sun shine any less bright.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“I watched him as a sailor watches the wind in fair weather, knowing not every ship reaches haven.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“... the three crowns that can usually be hoped for only at the end of a long life. Love, the trust of others, and that kind of glory that accompanies every woman who is happy”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“You see people in torn dresses, lying down and getting up in ramshackle cabins, but who knows what they may have in their cupboards? Who knows?”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“... and I'd be a human being again and not a maker of béchamel sauce.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“Everyone wanted to know what life was like at Belle-Feuille, behind all those ramparts of green - how they ate, talked, drank, went about their daily lives. And above all, what was important to them in life, and were they at least glad to be alive?”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“You smell of cinnamon in spite of the mombins.'
'You smell of cinnamon too,' I'd murmur.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“anyone who on Sunday wanted to forget his weekday soul”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“If I skip about, it's with my eyes fixed on your flesh and bones.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“By a mere word tossed into the air he had escaped doom.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“With their women's bodies and children's eyes, my friends felt quite ready to get the better of existence”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“Meanwhile the others continued the human line, wept, slaved, looked at a rosy sky and laughed.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“But we pondered a lot about the personal life of the grown-ups. We knew how they made love, and we knew too how they tore at and clawed and trampled on one another afterwards, following an unchanging course that led from the chase to weariness and downfall. But it seemed to me the balance was in favor of the men, and that even in their fall there was still something of victory. They broke bones and wombs, then they left their own flesh and blood and misery as a crab leaves his pincers between your fingers.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond

“But she had known life for a long time, my amorous mother with her two bastards for earrings; and she knew that almost always you have to tear out your entrails and fill your belly with straw if you want to enjoy a little walk in the sun.”
― Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond