Andrea Levy quotes

“There are some words that once spoken will split the world in two. There would be the life before you breathed them and then the altered life after they'd been said. They take a long time to find, words like that. They make you hesitate. Choose with care. Hold on to them unspoken for as long as you can just so your world will stay intact.”
― Andrea Levy, Small Island

“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live”
― Andrea Levy, The Long Song

“He looked so pained that I dreamed of taking his hands and making him dance”
― Andrea Levy, Small Island

“Describe snow to someone who's lived in the desert. Depict the colour blue for a blind man. Almost impossible to fashion the word.”
― Andrea Levy, Small Island

“We went up and up into the heavens until people were just dots below us. As we hung right at the top--the twinkling electric lights below mingling with the stars--Father said something I will never forget. He said, 'See here, Queenie. Look around. You've got the whole world at your feet, lass.”
― Andrea Levy

“Paved with gold, no - but, yes, diamonds appear on the ground in the rain”
― Andrea Levy, Small Island

“For, like the wind, the sun, or the flowing river, like a soaring man-of-war or a beetle under a stone, like a spider at a web or a crab scuttling sideways across a shore, Nimrod was free.”
― Andrea Levy, The Long Song