Zenzele Quotes

“There is not a man in the world who is worth your dignity. Do not confuse self-sacrifice with love.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“To love is a beautiful, mysterious event; do not miss it. Be neither too cautious nor too absorbed. Too many of us reason with our heart and experience with our heads.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Until we begin to put pen to paper, we historically do not exist.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Racism is a phenomenal thing; it is like a thick mist that obscures the vision and judgement of even great minds.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Welcome, my dear, to the Western world, land of democracy, freedom, and bigotry.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“The heart knows no logic beyond need and desire; the head has no senses except the common and the pragmatic. Neither, frankly, is particularly useful in love, anyway.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“I had once been naïve enough to believe that all would be well if you lived by the rules. Good things happened to good people, blessed are the meek, et cetera, et cetera. How disillusioned I have become since then. It hurt, because I wondered now what all the discipline, repression, and suppression had been for if it had not procured me the thing I had most wanted, and it certainly did not guarantee happiness.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“I suspect, even more importantly, the aged are hidden away so that we do not remember that one day we shall all walk that path, that we shall one day grow slow and stooped.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Foreign Cash is not the answers to our problems, my friend. Africa needs the hearts and minds of its sons and daughters to nurture it. You were our pride, Mukoma Bryon. When you did not return, a whole village lost its investment. Africa is all that we have. If we do not build it, no one else will.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“You shall be distinguished overseas by your colourful plumage, graceful flight and beautiful songs. There are so many lovely features that will make you conspicuous among the flock.”
― J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Do not be discouraged by its bredth. Therein lies its beauty”
― Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“She told me as I sat frightened like a mouse, just like you, 'A woman's body follows the moon. It is not still and hard like a man's. Her happiness and sadness take many forms; each day the brightness of her light and the mysterious depths of her shadows may change. A woman is close to the earth yet near to the heavens. She grows like the harvest; she becomes ripe like fruit. When, after many children, my son looks at you and asks where is the beauty of your youth, tell him these words. The body of your youth stays with your youth, and the body of the harvest, that is the body of your later years. Look at nature, how she dresses herself for every season. In the summer, she adorns herself as fields of rose and pink blooms, with fruits of peach, mango, and lemon, and as the season cools, she, too, dresses in darker hues of brown, maroon, and gold, and in the rains she is all gray mist and stormy blues. A woman must always be proud and look after herself.' Those are principles we follow forever, even us old ones.”
― Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“If you take a seed, [...] and scatter it across the lands, some will end up in marshes, some in rich fertile lands with flowing streams, others in sand, and others among the mountains and rocks. If the seed is tough, it will adapt and survive in all conditions; if it is weak, it will perish. The same seed in one country may yield a baobab but in another an oak. Our race is a potent seed. Whether you are from Ghana or Guyana, you are born of the same seed and you will be of the same fruit. We must recognize our fruition in London, in Paris, in Dakar, in Harare, and in Maputo. Our roots are deep and wide. We must extend our hearts and minds, like bridges, over the swamps of racial injustice, to link us together.”
― Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“You look at us old women, covered from head to toe in our tight headdresses and our long skirts, and you think we are like the nuns, afraid to show their bodies because it is a sin. But that is not so. It is because we understand nature's ways. We have lived long and deep in the bush with her. And she is a woman like us. My beauty is here now,' she said, pointing to her wrinkles and her breasts. 'There are birthmarks and then there are these. He-he. These are the marks of life. My face, just as it is, the map of my toils and joys, is as precious to me as your little waist and your rounded breasts are to you. This is testimony to the love I have given my family. There is not a mark here that is my own. It belongs to Baba va Tapiwa, Chipo, Farai, Tawona, and Ziyanai. It is a body of love. You see it as an old, dry, lifeless thing, but one day you will understand that each beauty has its season. The flaky, rough coconut protects the flesh and the sweet juices within. The body of youth knows its day and must live it to its fullest. The body of the harvest, too, has its time. That is mine. It is a body that has reaped and sown and gathered unto itself. Someday, too, will come the body of the earth, the final eternal one, which has no form or end, to which we must all return. I came to see you tonight, daughter, to tell you these words that my mother-in-law told me on my wedding night, ages ago, so that the wisdom of our ancestors may swell and ripen with each new bud that flowers. So our roots grow deeper and our words never die.”
― Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Shiri, at the end of the day you will meet only two men in your life: One will make your hands tremble; the other will make them steady. The first will be your passion of youth, but like the blazing fires of the bush, it will soon die to glowing embers, then cool ashes. The second will enter your life quietly, like a thief in the night. He will be like the mighty trees in the forest that we do not see before us, yet they are there, strong and tall; in rain and sun, they dig their roots deep and shade us with their leaves. It is the second one who you must marry. He will be a good husband and father to your children.”
― Maraire J. Nozpio, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“Mama, what do you think it means to be an African woman? ... It is to be strong, Zenzele. It is to be at peace within. You must always listen to that inner voice and not permit others to drown it out. It is to measure your words; to balance your works with your gifts carefully; it is in some ways to be selfless, to serve others yet to know and defend your rights to the bitter end.”
― Maraire J. Nozpio, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter

“You cannot reject a custom simply because it is vulnerable to abuse. That is like not going to church because there are so many hypocrites there. The important thing is that you understand the meaning of it and abide by it.”
― Maraire J. Nozpio, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter