“Of these, even fewer were brave enough to speak against it.”
”Marriage and health are twins. Inseparable. Single men wither away and die in rooms that smell of feet and armpits.”
”The water has been there a million years. How can we be late?”
”But we must distinguish between force and justice.”
”Perhaps my honourable and young friend should explain to the House the difference between appeasement and surrender.”
”The difference between appeasement and surrender is merely a matter of time and perhaps, 10,000 more young lives wasted for no reason.”
”You’re not afraid of Clarence.”
”Because he is the son of the king?”
”So you want ‘bloody noses and cracked crowns’?”
”Shakespeare, Henry IV.”
”A play about England changing.”
”As it will soon change.”
”Only if we change it. You don’t believe that you and I could change things?”
”I would change myself first.”
”Dear God, I know this is utterly absurd, but I feel I have to meet you in secret.”
”I have 10,000 engagement of state today, but I would rather spend the day getting a wet arse, studying dandelions and marvelling at bloody spiders’ webs.”
”You’ve found God, sir?”
”I think He found me.”
”’It is a sad fate for a man to die well-known to everybody else and still unknown to himself.’ Francis Bacon. I don’t just dust your books, sir.”
”Billy, no one of our age has ever taken power.”
”Which is why we’re too young to realise that certain things are impossible. So we will do them anyway.”
”Do you intend to use your beautiful voice to praise the Lord or change the world?”
”No. We do not want to talk because we hear you are a man who doesn’t believe what he hears until he sees it with his own eyes.”
”When the slaves leave port in Africa, they are locked into a space four foot by 18 inches. They have no sanitation, very little food, stagnant water. Their waste and blood fills the holes within three days and is never emptied. These iron and chains are to keep them from throwing themselves overboard.”
”The chains are not unlocked until you reach the plantation in Jamaica. Around half the slaves are dead already. In the markets, they stuff knotted rope into the anuses of those who are sick to disguise the dysentery. When you reach the plantation, they put the irons to the fire and do this. To let you know that you no longer belong to God, but to a man.”
”God sometimes does His work with gentle drizzle, not storms.”
”You told me that you live in the company of 20,000 ghosts. The ghosts of slaves.”
”I was explaining to a child why a grown man cowers in a dark corner.”
”I need you to tell me about them.”
”I’m not strong enough to hear my own confession.”
”I can’t help you. But do it, Wilbur, do it. Take them on. Blow their dirty filthy ships out of the water.”
”I shouldn’t talk about the slave trade?”
”I spent so many years talking about it.”
”So what’s a few more minutes?”
”It seems to me, that if there’s a bad taste in your mouth, you spit it out. You don’t constantly swallow it back.”
”That smell is the smell of death. Slow, painful death. Breathe it in. Breathe it deeply. Take those handkerchiefs away from your noses. There now. Remember that smell. Remember the Madagascar. Remember that God made men equal.”
”No matter how loud you shout, you will not drown out the voice of the people!”
”Is that the end of your story?”
”You think not?”
”No.”
”Why not?”
”Because after night comes day.”
”And when they stop being afraid, they rediscover their compassion.”
”This is my confession. You must use it.”
”Nosus Decipio. It’s Latin. Loosely translated, it means ‘we cheat’.”
”When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon. Men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they’ll receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power. A man who’s achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. Yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember the slave trade is no more.”