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Top 120 Yaa Gyasi Quotes (2025 Update)
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Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Asante traders would bring in their captives. Fante, Ewe, or Ga middlemen would hold them, then sell them to the British or the Dutch or whoever was paying the most at the time. Everyone was responsible. We all were... we all are.”

51. “Asante traders would bring in their captives. Fante, Ewe, or Ga middlemen would hold them, then sell them to the British or the Dutch or whoever was paying the most at the time. Everyone was responsible. We all were... we all are.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Guilt and doubt and fear had already settled into my young body like ghosts haunting a house.”

52. “Guilt and doubt and fear had already settled into my young body like ghosts haunting a house.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “No one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free.”

53. “No one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “She used the word akuraase, the same word she would use for a village in Ghana, but I had already been conditioned to see America as somehow elevated in relation to the rest of the world, and so I was convinced that an Alabama village couldn’t be an akuraase in the same way that a Ghanaian village could.”

54. “She used the word akuraase, the same word she would use for a village in Ghana, but I had already been conditioned to see America as somehow elevated in relation to the rest of the world, and so I was convinced that an Alabama village couldn’t be an akuraase in the same way that a Ghanaian village could.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “When I was very little, my mother took to calling me asaa, the miracle berry that, when eaten first, turns sour things sweet. Asaa in context is a miracle berry. Without context, it is nothing, does nothing. The sour fruit remains. In those early years of our family of four, sour fruit was everywhere, but I was asaa and Nana was context, and so we had sweetness in abundance.”

55. “When I was very little, my mother took to calling me asaa, the miracle berry that, when eaten first, turns sour things sweet. Asaa in context is a miracle berry. Without context, it is nothing, does nothing. The sour fruit remains. In those early years of our family of four, sour fruit was everywhere, but I was asaa and Nana was context, and so we had sweetness in abundance.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Marcus always nodded patiently when his father said things like this. Sonny was forever talking about slavery, the prison labor complex, the System, segregation, the Man. His father had a deep-seated hatred for white people. A hatred like a bag filled with stones, one stone for every year racial injustice continued to be the norm in America. He still carried the bag.”

56. “Marcus always nodded patiently when his father said things like this. Sonny was forever talking about slavery, the prison labor complex, the System, segregation, the Man. His father had a deep-seated hatred for white people. A hatred like a bag filled with stones, one stone for every year racial injustice continued to be the norm in America. He still carried the bag.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “I think when people heard about my brother they assumed that I had gone into neuroscience out of a sense of duty to him, but the truth is I’d started this work not because I wanted to help people, but because it seemed like the hardest thing you could do, and I wanted to do the hardest thing. I wanted to flay any mental weakness off my body like fascia from muscle.”

57. “I think when people heard about my brother they assumed that I had gone into neuroscience out of a sense of duty to him, but the truth is I’d started this work not because I wanted to help people, but because it seemed like the hardest thing you could do, and I wanted to do the hardest thing. I wanted to flay any mental weakness off my body like fascia from muscle.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “As long as he lived, it would always be a pleasure and a gift to fill his hands with the weight of her flesh.”

58. “As long as he lived, it would always be a pleasure and a gift to fill his hands with the weight of her flesh.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “He had always said that the joining of a man and a woman was also the joining of two families. Ancestors, whole histories, came with the act, but so did sins and curses.”

59. “He had always said that the joining of a man and a woman was also the joining of two families. Ancestors, whole histories, came with the act, but so did sins and curses.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “A lioness. She mates with her lion and he thinks the moment is about him when it is really about her, her children, her posterity. Her tricki s to make him think that he is king of the bush, but what he does a king matter? Really, she is king and queen and everything in between.”

60. “A lioness. She mates with her lion and he thinks the moment is about him when it is really about her, her children, her posterity. Her tricki s to make him think that he is king of the bush, but what he does a king matter? Really, she is king and queen and everything in between.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “The older Jo got, the more he understood about the woman called Ma. The more he understood that sometimes staying free required unimaginable sacrifice.”

61. “The older Jo got, the more he understood about the woman called Ma. The more he understood that sometimes staying free required unimaginable sacrifice.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Looking at us then, two laughing, playful children and their warm, doting father, it would be easy to assume that we’d all but forgotten what that man had yelled. That we’d forgotten we had any cares at all. But the memory lingered, the lesson I have never quite been able to shake: that I would always have something to prove and that nothing but blazing brilliance would be enough to prove it.”

62. “Looking at us then, two laughing, playful children and their warm, doting father, it would be easy to assume that we’d all but forgotten what that man had yelled. That we’d forgotten we had any cares at all. But the memory lingered, the lesson I have never quite been able to shake: that I would always have something to prove and that nothing but blazing brilliance would be enough to prove it.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “He runs his hands along her scabby back, and she does the same along his, and as they work together, clutching each other, some scars reopen. They are both bleeding now, both bride and bridegroom, in this unholy holy union.”

63. “He runs his hands along her scabby back, and she does the same along his, and as they work together, clutching each other, some scars reopen. They are both bleeding now, both bride and bridegroom, in this unholy holy union.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “She tried to smile, but she had been born during the years of Esi’s unsmiling, and she had never learned how to do it quite right. The corners of her lips always seemed to twitch upward, unwillingly, then fall within milliseconds, as though attached to that sadness that had once anchored her own mother’s heart.”

64. “She tried to smile, but she had been born during the years of Esi’s unsmiling, and she had never learned how to do it quite right. The corners of her lips always seemed to twitch upward, unwillingly, then fall within milliseconds, as though attached to that sadness that had once anchored her own mother’s heart.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “When I was very little, my mother took to calling me asaa, the miracle berry that, when eaten first, turns sour things sweet. Asaa in context is a miracle berry. Without context, it is nothing, does nothing. The sour fruit remains.”

65. “When I was very little, my mother took to calling me asaa, the miracle berry that, when eaten first, turns sour things sweet. Asaa in context is a miracle berry. Without context, it is nothing, does nothing. The sour fruit remains.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others.”

66. “This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Sonny would tell Marcus about how America used to lock up black men off the sidewalks for labor or how redlining kept banks from investing in black neighborhoods, preventing mortgages or business loans. So was it a wonder that prisons were still full of them? Was it a wonder that the ghetto was the ghetto?”

67. “Sonny would tell Marcus about how America used to lock up black men off the sidewalks for labor or how redlining kept banks from investing in black neighborhoods, preventing mortgages or business loans. So was it a wonder that prisons were still full of them? Was it a wonder that the ghetto was the ghetto?”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “I think we’re made out of stardust and God made the stars,” I said. I blew and yellow dust flew into the air, into Anne’s hair, and she looked at me like I was crazy, and she saw me.”

68. “I think we’re made out of stardust and God made the stars,” I said. I blew and yellow dust flew into the air, into Anne’s hair, and she looked at me like I was crazy, and she saw me.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Her mother often joked that Marjorie must have been birthed from a cocoa nut, split open and wide.”

69. “Her mother often joked that Marjorie must have been birthed from a cocoa nut, split open and wide.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “What a pity, what a waste. But the waste was my own, the waste was what I missed out on whenever I looked at him and saw just his addiction.”

70. “What a pity, what a waste. But the waste was my own, the waste was what I missed out on whenever I looked at him and saw just his addiction.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Forget for a moment what he looked like on paper, and instead see him as he was in all of his glory, in all of his beauty. It’s true that for years before he died, I would look at his face and think, What a pity, what a waste. But the waste was my own, the waste was what I missed out on whenever I looked at him and saw just his addiction.”

71. “Forget for a moment what he looked like on paper, and instead see him as he was in all of his glory, in all of his beauty. It’s true that for years before he died, I would look at his face and think, What a pity, what a waste. But the waste was my own, the waste was what I missed out on whenever I looked at him and saw just his addiction.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Marjorie wondered if she was in love. How could she know? How did anyone know? In middle school she had been into Victorian literature, the sweeping romance of it. Every character in those books was hopelessly in love. All the men were wooing, all the women being wooed. It was easier to see what love looked like then, the embarrassingly grand, unabashed emotion of it. Now, did it look like sitting in a Camry, sipping whiskey?”

72. “Marjorie wondered if she was in love. How could she know? How did anyone know? In middle school she had been into Victorian literature, the sweeping romance of it. Every character in those books was hopelessly in love. All the men were wooing, all the women being wooed. It was easier to see what love looked like then, the embarrassingly grand, unabashed emotion of it. Now, did it look like sitting in a Camry, sipping whiskey?”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “At times, my life now feels so at odds with the religious teachings of my childhood that I wonder what the little girl I once was would think of the woman I’ve become – a neuroscientist who has at times given herself over to equating the essence that psychologists call the mind, that Christians call the soul, with the workings of the brain.”

73. “At times, my life now feels so at odds with the religious teachings of my childhood that I wonder what the little girl I once was would think of the woman I’ve become – a neuroscientist who has at times given herself over to equating the essence that psychologists call the mind, that Christians call the soul, with the workings of the brain.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “The British were no longer selling slaves to America, but slavery had not ended, and his father did not seem to think that it would end. They would just trade one type of shackles for another, trade physical ones that wrapped around wrists and ankles for the invisible ones that wrapped around the mind.”

74. “The British were no longer selling slaves to America, but slavery had not ended, and his father did not seem to think that it would end. They would just trade one type of shackles for another, trade physical ones that wrapped around wrists and ankles for the invisible ones that wrapped around the mind.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “They’d heard it all, but hadn’t they earned their freedom? The days of running through forests and living under floorboards. Wasn’t that the price they had paid?”

75. “They’d heard it all, but hadn’t they earned their freedom? The days of running through forests and living under floorboards. Wasn’t that the price they had paid?”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “I’d once been like that, so lonely that I craved further loneliness.”

76. “I’d once been like that, so lonely that I craved further loneliness.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “I still wanted my sins. I still wanted my childhood, my freedom to fall asleep in big church with little consequence. I didn’t know what would become of me once I crossed the line from sinner to saved.”

77. “I still wanted my sins. I still wanted my childhood, my freedom to fall asleep in big church with little consequence. I didn’t know what would become of me once I crossed the line from sinner to saved.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Now, hearing Tansi speak, Afua resumed her crying, but it was as though no one heard. These tears were a matter of routine. They came for all of the women. They dropped until the clay below them turned to mud. At night, Esi dreamed that if they all cried in unison, the mud would turn to river and they could be washed away into the Atlantic.”

78. “Now, hearing Tansi speak, Afua resumed her crying, but it was as though no one heard. These tears were a matter of routine. They came for all of the women. They dropped until the clay below them turned to mud. At night, Esi dreamed that if they all cried in unison, the mud would turn to river and they could be washed away into the Atlantic.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “I haven’t changed, Willie,” Robert said to the wall. “No, but you ain’t the same neither,” she replied.”

79. “I haven’t changed, Willie,” Robert said to the wall. “No, but you ain’t the same neither,” she replied.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Willie smiled at Robert, and it wasn’t until that smile that she realized she forgave him. She felt like the smile had opened a valve, like the pressure of anger and sadness and confusion and loss was shooting out of her, into the sky and away. Away.”

80. “Willie smiled at Robert, and it wasn’t until that smile that she realized she forgave him. She felt like the smile had opened a valve, like the pressure of anger and sadness and confusion and loss was shooting out of her, into the sky and away. Away.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Has anyone ever been watched with as much intensity as a beloved family member just out of rehab?”

81. “Has anyone ever been watched with as much intensity as a beloved family member just out of rehab?”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “The practice of segregation still meant that Sonny had to see white people sitting at the front of every bus he took, that he got called “boy” by every other snot-nosed white kid in sight. The practice of segregation meant that he had to feel his separateness as inequality, and that was what he could not take.”

82. “The practice of segregation still meant that Sonny had to see white people sitting at the front of every bus he took, that he got called “boy” by every other snot-nosed white kid in sight. The practice of segregation meant that he had to feel his separateness as inequality, and that was what he could not take.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “But how do you know when you are nearing a true end instead of a dead end? How do you finish the experiment? What do you do when, years into your life, you figure out that the yellow brick road you’ve been easing down leads you directly into the eye of the tornado?”

83. “But how do you know when you are nearing a true end instead of a dead end? How do you finish the experiment? What do you do when, years into your life, you figure out that the yellow brick road you’ve been easing down leads you directly into the eye of the tornado?”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Was it lurking there again, the dark, deep sadness, or was it just the everyday kind, the kind we all have from time to time, the kind that comes and, more important, goes?”

84. “Was it lurking there again, the dark, deep sadness, or was it just the everyday kind, the kind we all have from time to time, the kind that comes and, more important, goes?”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “You are not alone, it says, and that is a comfort, not to the dying, but to those of us who are terrified of being left behind. Because.”

85. “You are not alone, it says, and that is a comfort, not to the dying, but to those of us who are terrified of being left behind. Because.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Other children would be sent to England for school and they would come back to form an elite class.” Next to him, Marjorie shifted her weight, and Marcus tried not to look at her. It was the way most people lived their lives, on upper levels, not stopping to peer underneath.”

86. “Other children would be sent to England for school and they would come back to form an elite class.” Next to him, Marjorie shifted her weight, and Marcus tried not to look at her. It was the way most people lived their lives, on upper levels, not stopping to peer underneath.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “One-tenth of a centimeter is all that stood between pretty good and unimaginable sorrow.”

87. “One-tenth of a centimeter is all that stood between pretty good and unimaginable sorrow.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “What could be worse than dead? But all around him, the evidence was clear. Only weeks before, the NYPD had shot down a fifteen-year-old black boy, a student, for next to nothing. The shooting had started the riots, pitting young black men and some black women against the police force. The news made it sound like the fault lay with the blacks of Harlem. The violent, the crazy, the monstrous black people who had the gall to demand that their children not be gunned down in the streets.”

88. “What could be worse than dead? But all around him, the evidence was clear. Only weeks before, the NYPD had shot down a fifteen-year-old black boy, a student, for next to nothing. The shooting had started the riots, pitting young black men and some black women against the police force. The news made it sound like the fault lay with the blacks of Harlem. The violent, the crazy, the monstrous black people who had the gall to demand that their children not be gunned down in the streets.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “And it wasn’t fair. That was the thing that was at the heart of my reluctance and my resentment. Some people make it out of their stories unscathed, thriving. Some people don’t.”

89. “And it wasn’t fair. That was the thing that was at the heart of my reluctance and my resentment. Some people make it out of their stories unscathed, thriving. Some people don’t.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “If she slept, she would do so only lightly, dipping the ladle of sleep into the shallow pool of dreamland.”

90. “If she slept, she would do so only lightly, dipping the ladle of sleep into the shallow pool of dreamland.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “The man took a long drag off his Newport. “This helps,“he said, waving the cigarette in the air. He pulled out a small glassine bag from his pocket and placed it in Sonny’s hand. “When that don’t help, this do,” he said.”

91. “The man took a long drag off his Newport. “This helps,“he said, waving the cigarette in the air. He pulled out a small glassine bag from his pocket and placed it in Sonny’s hand. “When that don’t help, this do,” he said.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Of course, my mother is her own person. Of course, she contains multitudes. She reacts in ways that surprise me, in part, simply because she isn’t me.”

92. “Of course, my mother is her own person. Of course, she contains multitudes. She reacts in ways that surprise me, in part, simply because she isn’t me.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “I couldn’t imagine living the way she lived, free, like an exposed wire ready and willing to touch whatever it touched. I couldn’t imagine being willing, and even after those few stolen moments of psychedelic transcendence, nonaddictive, harmless, and, yes, euphoric, I still couldn’t imagine being free.”

93. “I couldn’t imagine living the way she lived, free, like an exposed wire ready and willing to touch whatever it touched. I couldn’t imagine being willing, and even after those few stolen moments of psychedelic transcendence, nonaddictive, harmless, and, yes, euphoric, I still couldn’t imagine being free.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “No, sir. I was born free, right here in Baltimore.” The policeman smirked. “Go home,” he said. The policeman turned and walked away, and the quaking that had been held somewhere inside Jo’s bones started to escape until he was sitting on the hard ground, trying to hold himself together.”

94. “No, sir. I was born free, right here in Baltimore.” The policeman smirked. “Go home,” he said. The policeman turned and walked away, and the quaking that had been held somewhere inside Jo’s bones started to escape until he was sitting on the hard ground, trying to hold himself together.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Since moving to the Castle, she’d discovered that only the white men talked of “black magic.” As though magic had a color.”

95. “Since moving to the Castle, she’d discovered that only the white men talked of “black magic.” As though magic had a color.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Don’t matter if you was or wasn’t. All they gotta so is say you was. That’s all they gotta do. You think cuz you all big and muscled up, you safe? Naw, dem white folks can’t stand the sight of you. Walkin’ round free as can be. Don’t nobody want to see a black man look like you walkin’ proud as a peacock. Like you ain’t got a lick of fear in you.”

96. “Don’t matter if you was or wasn’t. All they gotta so is say you was. That’s all they gotta do. You think cuz you all big and muscled up, you safe? Naw, dem white folks can’t stand the sight of you. Walkin’ round free as can be. Don’t nobody want to see a black man look like you walkin’ proud as a peacock. Like you ain’t got a lick of fear in you.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Theirs was the kind of life that did not guarantee living.”

97. “Theirs was the kind of life that did not guarantee living.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “A little black child fighting in her sleep against an opponent she couldn’t name come morning because in the light that opponent just looked like the world around her. Intangible evil. Unspeakable unfairness. Beulah ran in her sleep, ran like she’d stolen something, when really she had done nothing other than expect the peace, the clarity, that came with dreaming. Yes, Jo thought, this was where it started, but when, where, did it end?”

98. “A little black child fighting in her sleep against an opponent she couldn’t name come morning because in the light that opponent just looked like the world around her. Intangible evil. Unspeakable unfairness. Beulah ran in her sleep, ran like she’d stolen something, when really she had done nothing other than expect the peace, the clarity, that came with dreaming. Yes, Jo thought, this was where it started, but when, where, did it end?”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Quey had wanted to cry, but the desire embarrassed him. He knew that he was one of the half-caste children of the Castle, and, like the other half-caste children, he could not fully claim half of himself, neither his father’s whiteness or his mother’s blackness. Neither England nor the Gold Coast.”

99. “Quey had wanted to cry, but the desire embarrassed him. He knew that he was one of the half-caste children of the Castle, and, like the other half-caste children, he could not fully claim half of himself, neither his father’s whiteness or his mother’s blackness. Neither England nor the Gold Coast.”

Yaa Gyasi Quote: “Maybe Beulah was seeing something more clearly on the nights she had these dreams, a little black child fighting in her sleep against an opponent she couldn’t name come morning because in the light that opponent just looked like the world around her. Intangible evil. Unspeakable unfairness.”

100. “Maybe Beulah was seeing something more clearly on the nights she had these dreams, a little black child fighting in her sleep against an opponent she couldn’t name come morning because in the light that opponent just looked like the world around her. Intangible evil. Unspeakable unfairness.”

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