Quotes by Alexandra Fuller

“You can't rewind war. It spools on, and on, and on, looping and jumping, distorted and cracked with age, and the stories contract until only the nuggets of hatred remain and no one can even remembe...”

“She treated Vanessa and me as if we were visiting budgerigars that needed to be fed and then put somewhere dark for the night.”

“What is important is the story. Because when we are all dust and teeth and kicked-up bits of skin - when we're dancing with our own skeletons - our words might be all that's left of us.”

“You learn not to mourn every little thing out here, or youd never, ever stop grieving.”

“It was a land of almost breathtaking beauty or of savage poverty; a land of screaming ghosts or of sun-flung possibilities; a land of inviting warmth or of desperate drought. How you see a country ...”

“The two of us lurching on an unlikely journey up a lonely road in the dark, thick beginning of a Mozambique night. As our pickup churned over rocks and through thick sand, the engine drowned out th...”

“The doctor in Murare is old - old for anybody. He is especially old for a doctor and especially old for an African. But he doesnt have the luxury of retirement to look forward to. There arent enoug...”

“There is only one time of absolute silence. Halfway between the dark of night and the light of morning, all animals and crickets and birds fall into a profound silence as if pressed quiet by the de...”

“It was the time of night that precedes dawn and is without perspective or reason. It was the hour when regret and fear overwhelm hope and courage and when all that is ugly in us is magnified and wh...”

“it is the deep-black-sky quiet time of night, which is the halfway time between the sun setting and the sun rising when even the night animals are quietas if they, like day animals, take a break in...”

“But this is africa, so hardly anything is normal.”

“I adore my family. I don't love their politics. I think they're wonderful parents. They were dreadful at parenting.”

“I don't know if it's just my age or the climate or the high altitude or some of those old-cowboy values rubbing off on me, but I've grown slightly mellower living in Wyoming. I think if you ride in...”

“The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful, often urgent, and essentially life-affirming, but they are all performances of courage and honesty.”

“There are real consequences when women speak out. It's really dangerous, and it takes real courage. We are still speaking out against a white male majority. Forget the glass ceiling. We haven't eve...”

“Yes, as an oppressed people, American Indians have this epic burden, but first and foremost, they're human: sometimes a mess, sometimes funny or sad, at times very wise, and other times not wise at...”

“I think there's a big difference between loving someone out of duty and dependency and loving someone because you really are able to sort of grow and be whole in the context of that relationship.”

“I have heard over and over again that the drilling business is a dangerous business, and death is an expected part of the game, but I've also heard of the way that safety violations, human and envi...”

“The schools wear the blank faces of war buildings, their windows blown blind by rocks or guns or mortars. Their plaster is an acne of bullet marks. The huts and small houses crouch open and vulnera...”

“In the West, it was believed that attitude and ambition saved you. In Africa, we had learned that no one was immune to capricious tragedy.”