Bessie Head Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

Love is mutually feeding each other, not one living on another like a ghoul.

Bessie Head
It was said of Moleka that he had taken his heart out of his body and hidden it in some secret place while he made love to all the women in the village. Dikeledi was the only woman who knew that. The quarrels were about where he had hidden his heart.

Bessie Head
How universal was the language of oppression! They had said of the Masarwa what every white man had said of every black man: 'They can't think for themselves. They don't know anything.'

Bessie Head
I might really have gone round the bend. I mean people who get visions and see a gigantic light descend on them from the sky can't be all there but if so I feel mighty happy. If one is happy and cracked it's much better than being unhappy and sane.

Bessie Head
And if the white man thought that Asians were a low, filthy nation, Asians could still smile with relief—at least, they were not Africans. And if the white man thought that Africans were a low, filthy nation, Africans in southern Africa could still smile—at least, they were not bushmen. They all have their monsters.

Bessie Head
If the things of the soul are really a question of power, then anyone in possession of power of the spirit could be Lucifer.

Bessie Head
Most people live uncomplicated lives. They have work and quietly rear their children. There is an order and sanity about them that keeps the world going. There is an outer disorder and insanity about my life which makes me a victim. One of the disorders is that they won't give us citizenship here...

Bessie Head
The woman from America loves both Africa and America, independendy. She can take what she wants from both and say: "Dammit." It is a most strenuous and difficult thing to do.

Bessie Head
It is preferable to change the world on the basis of love of mankind. But if that quality be too rare, then common sense seems the next best thing.

Bessie Head
A discipline I have observed is an attitude of love and reverence to people...

Bessie Head
I have often noticed that the need for cash and the production of a masterpiece just don't coincide with me. Money will hit me at a big off-period and genius will hit me in starvation, that is, I often get the money when I don't think I deserve it and have been lolling around for days and days thinking the most abysmal thoughts.

Bessie Head
People who hoard little bits of things cannot throw out and expand, and, in doing so, keep in circulation a flowing current of wealth.

Bessie Head
The philosophy of love and peace strangely overlooked who was in possession of the guns. There had been love and peace for some time on the continent of Africa because for all this time black men had been captivated by the doctrines of Christianity. It took them centuries to realize its contradictions.... perhaps there was no greater crime as yet than all the lies Western civilization had told in the name of Jesus Christ.

Bessie Head
People with really weak characters cause an immense amount of suffering in the world. They destroy whole civilisations.

Bessie Head
Love is so powerful, it's like unseen flowers under your feet as you walk.

Bessie Head