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This is one of the consequences of the civil war. People stop trusting each other, and every stranger becomes an enemy.
Ishmael Beah -
...children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.
Ishmael Beah
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We all find joy and radiance and a reason to move on even in the most dire of circumstances. Even in chaos and madness, there's still a beauty that comes from just the vibrancy of another human spirit.
Ishmael Beah -
My childhood had gone by without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen.
Ishmael Beah -
In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.
Ishmael Beah -
We all have that capacity to lose our humanity when circumstances force us to do so. It's not specific to people who live in Africa or Latin America or Asia. And equally, we are capable of regaining ourselves.
Ishmael Beah -
I believe that there is a God, and coming from an African tradition, I believe also that there are gods.
Ishmael Beah -
Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them.
Ishmael Beah
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I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I've come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end.
Ishmael Beah -
What happens in the context of war is that, in order for you to make a child into a killer, you destroy everything that they know, which is what happened to me and my town. My family was killed, all of my family, so I had nothing.
Ishmael Beah