Moon Witch, Spider King Quotes

“The world is fickle about witches.'
'The wold is fickle about women.”
"Where in all this do you fit?"
"I'm not trying to fit," I say.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“Meanwhile, I watch and work up my rage at men, who can be villainous to all, but virtuous to some. Watching them be kind to children should make me think of them as better men, but it make them worse, for no other wicked is more wicked than choosing with who you dole out kindness.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“You think this is about setting aright what is askew, disorder back into order. That is the shit men think, to make any wicked action right in their eyes.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“For the age of the voice is over and we in the age of the written mark. The word on stone, the word on parchment, the word on cloth, the word that is even greater than the glyph, for the word provoke a sound in the mouth.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“If it wasn't for these dead words some people would never know who they be. You out here thinking you doing what? Fixing a wrong? You think your wrong is the first? If all of your kind did read, then maybe the last wrong would stay the last and you wouldn't be here insulting books that do nothing but hold truth you can't keep.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“No thought is wise just because you have it, girl.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“To be a man you do as man do. Master one thing and you can fail at everything else, for to be a man is to fail at everything else. Here is the one thing. What men do in all things, more than anything, is take up space, whether he be priest, king, beggar, or hunter. Whether he be living or dead. More space than he need, and more space than he will use.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“The only difference between who is a witch and who is not is one man's mouth,' say the cook.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“The world is fickle about witches."
"The world is fickle about women.”
"Where in all this do you fit?"
"I'm not trying to fit," I say.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“Third-eye magic? Only man need a third eye. Woman fine with two, sometimes one.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“The world is fickle about witches.'
'The wold is fickle about women.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“I admire that a woman can do people like a man. You just get up one day and gone. No drums, no pigeons, no note, no word, no nothing.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“What you looking at is the only way I don't feel like being me is labor, like I holding myself together all the time.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“I start to wonder if there be any chance of schooling for any of them, for who will take to teaching a child that could kill her with one bite?”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“Word is divine wish, they say. Word is invisible to all but the gods. So when woman or man write words, they dare to look at the divine.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“What we get from your side of the family."
"Woman who don't settle," Nsaka say.
"And where that get you?" ask the sister.
"Far away from here.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“For when the people flock to your house in mourning, people joined by blood or by law, it don't matter what feeling you carry for them, if you carry any at all. For grief is a burden that don't care about anything other than we bear it. You don't need love to withstand it, you need shoulders. I didn't discover this until now, that mourning is the work of many, and we have only us.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“Living through a day was harder, for no matter how much I stomp one down another was always coming. Watching the little poison frog take on a day is how I learn to live through it. First rip the day in half, time to sleep, time to walk. Then tear it down more, then more, and more after that. Tear a day into pieces you can swallow and soon the whole thing will pass.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“knowledge of some sort of sick white science,”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“Envy is what they have for us because we have one power no god can ever have, and that is the power to surprise oneself.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“But from what she been seeing since the termite hill, trust is one thing you should never put in the gods. Better yet to come to them in fear and trembling. Better even yet not to come to them at all. As for hope, that sound like it can be a good thing for those who need it, but for she, the only hope she need from the gods is that they never find her to make sport.”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“We were women together”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King

“and they purr and ooh to my purr”
― Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King