Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them. Edwidge Danticat More Quotes by Edwidge Danticat More Quotes From Edwidge Danticat Someone has said that nations have interests, they don't have friends, and you see that over and over in U.S. policy. Edwidge Danticat policy interest said I would hate for people to generalize about every Haitian from something that one Haitian did, or a group of Haitians did. Edwidge Danticat groups hate people Language is such a powerful thing. After the earthquake, I went to Haiti and people were talking about how [they] described this feeling of going through an earthquake. People really didn't have the vocabulary - before we had hurricanes. I'd talk with people and they'd say, "We have to name it; it has to have a name." Edwidge Danticat vocabulary powerful talking The justification - the idea that we have a right to invade another country and determine another people's destiny - is frightening. And I fear really for the future of that occupation. What happens now, and twenty years from now, and forty years from now, given our case? People in the United States may feel like when we don't see it on CNN twenty-four hours a day, it sort of disappears. But it doesn't disappear for the people who have to live under occupation - and their children and their children's children. Edwidge Danticat destiny country children Salt is a powerful symbol in Haiti, as elsewhere. Salt of the earth, for example is an American phrase. In Haiti, myth and legend has it that if you are turned into a zombie, if someone gives you a taste of salt, then you can come back to life. And in the life of the fishermen, there are so many little things about salt that I wanted to incorporate. The salt in the air. The crackling of salt in the fire. There's all this damage, this peeling of the fishing boats from the sea salt. But there is also healing from it, sea baths that are supposed to heal all kinds of aches and wounds. Edwidge Danticat powerful healing giving On some levels, you can also have this feeling that we are being duped, somehow. And that the world is at play for something you would understand more if it were pure ideology. It is a very strange time and also basic things are being taken away. Edwidge Danticat taken play feelings The more practice you have, the less stressful writing is. Edwidge Danticat stressful practice writing I hope to be a good role model for my daughters. Edwidge Danticat role-models daughter roles Wonderful thing about novels is that sometimes we read a novel and we know the person in the novel more than we know people in our own lives. Edwidge Danticat wonderful sometimes people Creating these messes that go from administration to administration and then you swoop in and clean them up - with that heroic Delta force - people not realizing that they were always there but doing different things than what we see them doing at the moment. Edwidge Danticat creating different people Being a shy child, I always longed for a mask. Even in my adult life, I have glasses, they are my mask. Edwidge Danticat adults glasses children That experience of touching down in a totally foreign place is like having a blank canvas: You begin with nothing, but stroke by stroke you build a life. This process requires everything great art requires-risk-tasking, hope, a great deal of imagination, all the qualities that are the building blocks of art. You must be able to dream something nearly impossible and toil to bring it into existence. Edwidge Danticat block dream art For the majority of the people it is a difficult place to live. That's a reality that we can't ignore. But there is also great beauty to it. Edwidge Danticat majority reality people We all have a tendency to over generalize our individual experiences. After I've published something, I'll meet someone who says, "I'm Haitian, and I don't know this, so it must not be true." Even if we're talking about a work of fiction. I've gotten very angry myself reading many things about Haiti. We're not a monolithic group; no group is. Also, it's important to keep in mind the genre in which we are writing. Fiction is full of invented stories about exceptional people in exceptional situations. Those situations are not always cheery or celebratory. Edwidge Danticat reading writing people The best moment in writing any book is when you just can't wait to get back to the writing, when you can't wait to re-enter that fictional place, when your fictional town feels even more real than the town where you actually live. Edwidge Danticat real writing book It's interesting to see people overcome things. Because if you didn't overcome, you wouldn't be writing it. Edwidge Danticat writing people interesting I see the sharp inequality between how Haitian and Cuban refugees are treated in Florida. Both groups come here because their lives are equally desperate. But on arrival, the Haitians are incarcerated, and some are immediately repatriated, whereas Cubans get to stay and are eligible for citizenship. Edwidge Danticat citizenship florida groups Sometimes we mask ourselves to further reveal ourselves, and it's always been connected to me with being a writer: We tell lies to tell a greater truth. The story is a mask; the characters you create are masks. That appeals to me. Aside from that, too, in the carnival the masks were beautiful, and offered a vision of Haitian creativity. Edwidge Danticat creativity beautiful lying The past is like the hair on our head. I moved to New York when I was twelve, but you always have this feeling that wherever you come from, you physically leave it, but it doesn't leave you. Edwidge Danticat new-york hair past My models were oral, were storytellers. Like my grandmothers and my aunts. It's true, a lot of people in my life were not literate in a formal sense, but they were storytellers. So I had this experience of just watching somebody spin a tale off the top of her head. I loved that. Edwidge Danticat aunt grandmother people
