Quotes

“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.”

"My high school friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them
the full story of my life".

Friend : “Why did you leave Sierra Leone?”

Ishmael : “Because there is a war.”

Friend : “Did you witness some of the fighting?”

Ishmael : “Everyone in the country did.”

Friend : “You mean you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?”
Ishmael : “Yes, all the time.”

Friend : “Cool.”

Ishmael : I smile a little.

Friend : “You should tell us about it sometime.”
Ishmael : “Yes, sometime.”

“This is one of the consequences of the civil war. People stop trusting each other, and every stranger becomes an enemy.” 

~Here Ishmael emphasizes how relationships with other people became corrupted as the result of war.




“Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. ”

“...children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.”



“When I was young, my father used to say, ‘If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.’ I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn’t know where I was going. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive.”



“These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which triggers memories from the past.”