The Perfect Nine Quotes

“Woman is the mother of life,
For she is the one who carries the womb
of life.
Woman is the carrier of creation. We show
her gratitude always.”
― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi

“To build calls for hard work,
From the one who looks to tomorrow.
To destroy is easy work,
For one who wants to return to yesterday,
Like a grown person wishing to remain a child.”
― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi

“The journey of life itself is not a shortcut to knowledge, it is a long learning process.
One cannot hurry it, and one does not travel on it alone.”
― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi

“Everything owns a sound, loud or soft. When sound hits a thing, it comes back an echo.

Mumbi said -Everything sends back a sound, however soft. If you listen to an echo with care, you can tell where it is coming from.

The ear is the eye of the soul. It sorts out the sound and the echo and tells us what makes the sound and where it is coming from”
― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi

“But our time has come.
Tomorrow we are going on a journey.
We are going back to the mountain from which we came.
In case we don't return, I leave you with these words:

"Don't look for me in wicked deeds.
Don't look for me in theft and robbery.
Don't look for me in idleness.
Don't look for me in senseless violence.
Don't look for me in hatred.
Don't look for me in meaningless wars.
Don't look for me in bloodletting strife,
For my name must not be in the mouths
Of those plotting wicked deeds."

Mũmbi said:
"Look for me in the water.
Look for me in the wind.
Look for me in the soil.
Look for me in the fire—
Even in the sun,
Even in the stars.
Look for me in the rain.
Look for me among the tillers.
Look for me in the harvests.

"Look for me in love.
Look for me in unity.
Look for me among the helping.
Look for me among the oppressed.
Look for me among the seekers of justice,
Those who give food to the hungry, water to the thirsty.
Look for me among those helping the ailing.
Look for me among them without clothes and shelter.
Look for me among those building the nation in the name of the human."

Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi said in unison:
"If you do that,
We are together with you
Now and all the days, life without end.”
― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi

“Disability of the body does not mean
disability of the heart and mind.”
― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi

“Human-to-human cruelty is worse than
that of beast to human.
Worse still is the cruelty among neighbors
when it drives them
To raise machetes, spears, arrows, and
clubs against one another.”
― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi