Helon Habila

Helon Habila Ngalabak (born November 1967) is a Nigerian novelist and poet.



Oil on Water (2010)

 * "You must take a year off, one of these days, before you’re old and tired and weighed down by responsibility. Go away somewhere, and read. Read all the important books. Educate yourself, then you’ll see the world in a different way."


 * "Can you continue to love a person regardless of such shortcomings? Maybe because you hope to save them? Or because you can't help it? Isn't that what love is all about?"


 * "Our job is to find out the truth, even if it is buried deep in the earth."


 * "The further from home you wander, the closer you get to Siberia."


 * Nostalgia settled on my shoulders like the arm of a long-lost friend, urging me to look back and listen; it had been years since I heard such morning sounds, such silence.
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 * I've seen children snatched away from their mothers, never to be reunited. I've seen husbands taken from their wives and kids and sent away to prison. I've seen grown men flogged by soldiers in front of their kids. That's how history is made, and it's our job to witness it.
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 * Our job is to find out the truth, even if it is buried deep in the earth
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Travelers

 * There is no loneliness like the loneliness of a stranger in a strange city.
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 * Not all of us have that luxury, of a past. My history doesn't offer me much in that respect.
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 * Our story is over, the ink has dried, each of us must move on now and it will be as if we had never met, never loved, and never dreamt together.
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 * I didn't love him. He was a good, decent guy, but I wanted more at that time." She shrugged. "I was not so young anymore. Time was passing for me. I wanted more… excitement.
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 * Sometimes poets have to be imperfect so their poetry can be perfect.
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 * Happiness is important, but I wouldn't say it is the main purpose of human existence.
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