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Quote by Shirani Rajapakse

Work

The way it is

This work delves into the essence of existence, examining the intricate tapestry of life and the human experience from a philosophical perspective. more

Author

Shirani Rajapakse

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Shirani Rajapakse. more

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“... [t]he air was thinning out, as if from too much wear, not when Scout was killed but two weeks later--even before Scout's body had been shipped--when they were informed that Easter was dead too. Babies. One nineteen, the other twenty-one. How proud she was when they enlisted. She had actively encouraged them to do so. Their father had served in the forties. Uncles too. Jeff Fleetwood was back from Vietnam and none the worse. And although he did seem a little shook up, Menus Jury got back alive. Like a fool, she believed her sons would be safe. Safer than anywhere in Oklahoma outside Ruby. Safer in the army than in Chicago, where Easter wanted to go. Safer than Birmingham, than Montgomery, Selma, than Watts. Safer than Money, Mississippi, in 1955 and Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963. Safer than Newark. She had thought war was safer than any city in the United States. Now she had four unopened letters mailed in 1968 and delivered to the Demby post office four days after she buried the last of her sons. She had never been able to open them. Both had been home on furlough that Thanksgiving, 1968. Seven months after King's murder, and Soane had sobbed like the redeemed to see her boys alive. Her sweet colored boys unshot, unlynched, unmolested, unimprisoned.”

WarDeathBlackLivesSonsKilledShotLynched
Book:Paradise
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“He had always worked for his father, in the family firm, but after his father's reaction to the house Pavel had decided not to do that anymore. 'All my life,' he said, 'he criticise. He criticise my work, my idea, he say he don't like the way I talk – even he criticise my wife and my children. But when he criticise my house –' Pavel pursed his lips in a smile – 'then I think, okay, is enough.”

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Book:Transit
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“When he died I had been away from home for a little over a year. In that year I had had time to become aware of the meaning of all my father’s bitter warnings, had discovered the secret of his proudly pursed lips and rigid carriage: I had discovered the weight of white people in the world. I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now would be for me an awful thing to live with and that the bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me.”

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Book:Notes of a Native Son
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