Quotes by Ishmael Beah

“How many more times do we have to come to terms with death before we find safety?" he asked. He waited a few minutes, but the three of us didn't say anything. He continued: "Every time people come ...”

“Circumstances will change and things will be fine, just hold on a little more”

“Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I close my eyes and wait for death. Even thought I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I ...”

“On our way back to her house, I didnt look at the city lights any longer. I looked into the sky and felt as if the moon was following us.When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky spea...”

“I put my hands behind my head and lay on my back, trying to hold on to the memories of my family. Their faces seemed to be far off somewhere in my mind, and to get to them I had to bring up painful...”

“I lay in my bed night after night staring at the ceiling and thinking, Why have I survived the war? Why was I the last person in my immediate family to be alive? I didnt know.”

“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.”

“It isn't about knowing the most stories, child. It is about carrying the ones that are most important and passing them along.”

“The branches of the trees looked as if they were holding hands and bowing their heads in prayer.”

“Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their family and communities...This was one of the consequences of civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an en...”

“I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the...”

“We took a bowl each and started eating. He went back into the little room, and by the time he returned to the table with his own bowl of food to eat with us, we had already finished. He was shocked...”

“I was so happy that my mother, father, and two brothers had somehow found one another. Perhaps my mother and father have gotten back together, I thought.”

“My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector, and my rule was to kill or be killed. The extent of my thoughts didnt go much beyond that. We had been fighting for over two years, and...”

“Sometimes I closed my eyes hard to avoid thinking, but the eye of the mind refused to be closed and continued to plague me with images.”

“I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my lif...”

“Children played guessing games, telling each other whether the gun fired was and AK-47, a G3, an RPG, or a machine gun.”

“I am always quiet so that I know what to say when I must speak.”

“One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasnt sure when or where it was going to end. I didnt know what I was going to do with my life. I fe...”

“Who can ever know what path to walk on when all of them are either crooked or broken? One just has to walk.”