some highlights:


! Ever since I was born – and God knows that was a long time ago – I have never heard of a white man who had learned to speak Bambara, or any other language of this country. But you rootless people think only of learning his, while our language dies.’

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‘I speak to you in Bambara, and you answer me in a language of savages!’

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But what do you have in your head?’
‘Thoughts, Grandmother, nothing but thoughts.’ Ad’jibid’ji’s hands were clasped behind her back, and she was balancing carefully, first on one foot, and then the other.

......

‘I wish that you should not be present at my funeral, and that if my house should be destroyed by fire you would fan the flames rather than throw water on them! And as for that one …’ she turned towards the ram. ‘If he enters my house again, I will kill him with my own hands.

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He isn’t like the other toubabs …’
‘What others? I don’t know any others – they are all alike! The only good ones were born dead. 

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This time the women had gathered together everything they could find in the area that might serve as a weapon, and now their fists clenched around the handles of wrenches and knives as well as the necks of the inevitable bottles.

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I would rather lose my eyes and be burned alive over a slow fire than ever speak a word again to that man. If I had to do what I did to Vendredi again, I would do it gladly. People like those two are neither relatives nor friends. They would kiss the behind of the toubabs for a string of medals, and everyone knows it. Now stop crying and get up; we are going. I have seen enough of their faces!’

.....

Three million francs is a lot of money for a Negro lathe operator,’ Doudou said, ‘but even three million francs won’t make me white. I would rather have the ten minutes for tea and remain a Negro.’
[...]
‘Ibrahim Bakayoko, who is one of our leaders, says that anyone who says, “I like the Negroes”, is a liar.’
[...]
 A black man isn’t an object to be liked or disliked like an orange or a pear or a piece of furniture. So why should you say, “I like them”?’

...

The women got a big welcome when they came back, of course, but now the men are having all sorts of trouble with them. At first they even pounced on me like tigresses – they wanted to start running everything! But things are a little calmer now – the children have not come back yet, and the women go out to the lake every day. In future, though, we will have to reckon with them in whatever we do.