Edwidge Danticat

I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when it’s…

— Edwidge Danticat

“So much had fallen into the sea. Hats fell in to the sea. Hearts fell into the sea. So much had fallen…

— Edwidge Danticat

For the majority of the people it is a difficult place to live. That's a reality that we can't ignore. But there…

— Edwidge Danticat

“We’re all carrying our coffins with us every day.” Or “We are all constantly cheating death.”

— Edwidge Danticat

I think novels just really show us the deepest parts of people's hearts, and you cannot walk away anymore and say, "I…

— Edwidge Danticat

“Even from those very first hours, Claire was an easy and quiet child. It was as though she already knew that she…

— Edwidge Danticat

There [Haiti] were also leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose motto was, "Cut their heads off, burn their houses."

— Edwidge Danticat

I was able to not fold and go in a corner because I had my writing as therapy, but also as my…

— Edwidge Danticat

Their Maker, she said, gives them the sky to carry because they are strong. These people do not know who they are,…

— Edwidge Danticat

“Old age is not meant to be survived alone," Man Rapadou said, her voice trailing with her own hidden thoughts. "Death should…

— Edwidge Danticat

I see the sharp inequality between how Haitian and Cuban refugees are treated in Florida. Both groups come here because their lives…

— Edwidge Danticat

When people think about this religion, they'll say "voodoo" this and "voodoo" that in the way the Hollywood movies show it: the…

— Edwidge Danticat

“If they come into a house and there is a son and a mother there, they hold a gun to their heads.…

— Edwidge Danticat

Write what haunts you. What keeps you up at night. What you are unable to get out of your mind. Sometimes they…

— Edwidge Danticat

“From her experience working with the weak and the sick, she'd learned that the disease you ignore is the one that kills…

— Edwidge Danticat

I very much love a physical book myself. I think people who have had this experience of also seeing a book come…

— Edwidge Danticat

“She told me about a group of people in Guinea who carry the sky on their heads. They are the people of…

— Edwidge Danticat

People often think of Haiti as a place where you're not supposed to have any joy. I wanted to show that this…

— Edwidge Danticat

“Two mountains can never meet but perhaps you and I can meet again. I am coming to your waterfall”

— Edwidge Danticat

That's whatever news topic, whatever political process any country is going through - whenever they are in the news, that's when they…

— Edwidge Danticat

“Our fatigue limited our desire to talk. Besides, each person's story did nothing except bring you closer to your own pain.”

— Edwidge Danticat

More and more people are able to access information - thank goodness we have the Internet and if you are interested you…

— Edwidge Danticat

“I wish I could've done more for her, but some sorrows were simply too individual to share.”

— Edwidge Danticat

I'm happy to be part of this chorus of people who are trying to tell more complex stories about Haiti.

— Edwidge Danticat

I think it's hard for an outsider to capture the flavor of a community and all its nuances, so ultimately Haitian-Americans need…

— Edwidge Danticat

I would hate for people to generalize about every Haitian from something that one Haitian did, or a group of Haitians did.

— Edwidge Danticat

Being a shy child, I always longed for a mask. Even in my adult life, I have glasses, they are my mask.

— Edwidge Danticat

In Haiti you had the Duvaliers for 29 years and they were very well supported by the United States.

— Edwidge Danticat

“What if my becoming fully aware of the frequency of such moments makes me terrified to leave my house?”

— Edwidge Danticat

Wonderful thing about novels is that sometimes we read a novel and we know the person in the novel more than we…

— Edwidge Danticat

We need literature because we wouldn’t fully know ourselves without it. We need good literature to be fully human.

— Edwidge Danticat

It's interesting to see people overcome things. Because if you didn't overcome, you wouldn't be writing it.

— Edwidge Danticat

I wanted to raise the voice of a lot of the people that I knew growing up, and this was, for the…

— Edwidge Danticat

I was neither doing these people nor myself a favor by showing up when my heart wasn't in it. There were not…

— Edwidge Danticat

People are just too hopeful, and sometimes hope is the biggest weapon of all to use against us. People will believe anything.

— Edwidge Danticat

Life's hard in Haiti right now. And the hardest thing is that the future does not lie with one person.

— Edwidge Danticat

Sometimes family members will ask to be kept out of certain things that I'm writing, and I try to respect that. I'd…

— Edwidge Danticat

There is something human about the way people react to and identify with suffering. There's a lot more empathy in the world…

— Edwidge Danticat

You learned in school that you have pencils and paper only because the trees gave themselves in unconditional sacrifice.

— Edwidge Danticat

“The women in your family have never lost touch with one another. Death is a path we take to meet on the…

— Edwidge Danticat