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The Infamous Rosalie QUOTES

The Infamous Rosalie QUOTES

1 " I feel the rage and hatred take over my sadness and settle into righteous anger. At the moment my anger is like calm water, a light breeze with no protection. But do we have any other choice than to accept the showers and the torrential rains, the earthquakes, when everything changes place and season? "

― Evelyne Trouillot , The Infamous Rosalie

2 " Never explain to a man being whipped how to avoid blows. Every one learns to protect the body part most sensitive to him, his most vital part. You'll see all sorts of ruses that we slaves invent to try to survive this horror. Some will seem ridiculous, others barbaric, but who can really judge? A human being will do whatever he needs to do to make sure the breath that fills his voice belongs to him. It's his right. "

― Evelyne Trouillot , The Infamous Rosalie

3 " Grief accumulates, and in the end we don't know for whom we are crying, since our pain comes from so many sources. "

― Evelyne Trouillot , The Infamous Rosalie

4 " These words come back to remind me that I am a slave, and it is in this truth that my strength lies. Whether a field slave or a house slave, man, woman, or child, the slave is a creature who has lost his soul between the mill and the sugarcane, between the ship's hold and its steerage, between the crinoline and the slap in the face. Shame stains our every gesture. When we place our feet, undeserving of shoes, on the ground, when we let our exhausted bodies fall on cornhusk mattresses, and when we swing the bamboo fans, we crush our souls under the weight of our shame. Only our gestures of revolt truly belong to us. "

― Evelyne Trouillot , The Infamous Rosalie

5 " The planning of torture becomes an exciting game, and not a single one of them seems to connect it to the fact that a man's life hangs in the balance. "

― Evelyne Trouillot , The Infamous Rosalie

6 " Everything in me scatters and reassembles at the whim of my outbursts and dread. I am a prisoner of a past I haven't lived and am helpless as I face the coming days, which await my courage. I don't dare to face my fears. "

― Evelyne Trouillot , The Infamous Rosalie

7 " I wasn't intending to write a historical novel. May I be forgiven, then, for the few discrepancies and creative liberties I've taken. I only seek to acknowledge my characters' humanity. Yet I must refuse any responsibility for the torture and punishment described in the text. They are all unfortunately true, born of the cruel and perfidious imagination of those who proclaimed themselves to be civilized. "

― Evelyne Trouillot , The Infamous Rosalie