The House of Rust Quotes

“It’s a gift, it’s a blessing. Say a prayer over it, let the blood from the old dead—usually so estranged to me—warm. When I eat what they ate, I am for a moment more than the little I am, I am the present because of what was past. I am blood. I have a people.”
― Khadija Abdalla Bajaber, The House of Rust

“Love...is like courage. It can make you leap to your feet or stay your sword, it can make you a fool, but it does not paralyse. If it is only cutting you and cutting you, then it isn't love, it's just something you call love so you can pretend a wound is beautiful. Love is not an eternal prison, is not a wound, is not a poison. It is an exchange, it is always returning. It nurtures and binds.”
― Khadija Abdalla Bajaber, The House of Rust

“This game where you teach me to be wise" —she saw Hababa’s back and swallowed the brine in her throat, a sulphur now forever in the lungs— "is a game l'd wanted to play. I thought for a moment thar I could be one of the girls in the stories, that I could be brave and certain and true and more. In the stories they're guided by some force that makes them righteous and honourable. But I am no such person. I ran away, not toward. I'm just a poorly made thing looking for a father who doesn't want to be found, to bring him back to a place that will eat us alive anyway. There are no songs about girls like me, neither magic nor miracles."
The cat was silent for a long time. "There is still a journey to finish.”
"Don't you know?" She laughed, but it was a sob. "All journeys end in Mombasa.”
"Morbidness is a self-indulgence you can no longer afford."
"I'm tired of suffering."
"Then pray for death and swim deep.”
― Khadija Abdalla Bajaber, The House of Rust