Monique Roffey Quotes

#1. At the age of 62, my father died of cancer - it was much too soon. My mother never remarried or got over it, never even thought of another man.

Monique Roffey

#2. I made myself unhappy measuring my love against a given norm. The truth is, we make ourselves happy in among a wide variety of loves; all count.

Monique Roffey

#3. The romantic idealism of my youth has been replaced with realism and hard work at what I love.

Monique Roffey

#4. Trinidad's language is a fusion of English, African, and French, and so we have our own words and even our own dictionary. Steupse is a common local word, and it's the onomatopoeic word for the sound people make to show disapproval, or to show they are vexed, when they suck their teeth together.

Monique Roffey

#5. Apart from writing books, my 40s have been about pursuing personal growth. Whatever were the mistakes of my earlier life, I've been committed to a pause, a regroup. I don't want to make the same mistakes in the future.

Monique Roffey

#6. 'The White Woman on the Green Bicycle' is a love story mapped onto an unfolding political tragedy: that of the failure of the Independence era in Trinidad.

Monique Roffey

#7. My parents had a long and eventful marriage and were always a bit like movie stars to me when they were young.

Monique Roffey

#8. Long-term heterosexual monogamy is still the dominant model: men and women still want to pair for a long period of time.

Monique Roffey

#9. What I always knew about my parents was that they were in love, and this love had a fizz. It was exciting to be their child, to be around them. There was a dynamism between them, a charge.

Monique Roffey

#10. New Year's Eve is not about having a big party for me. It's a time of reflection, and I often go on spiritual retreats.

Monique Roffey

#11. I talk to myself. It's my worst habit. I often muse aloud, or, when people drive me crazy, I curse them aloud. I might do a ranting monologue about how pissed off I am about them, occasionally forgetting that they might still be in the room; now, that's weird!

Monique Roffey

#12. Trinidadians love speaking their own English; it's full of poetic forms and can be playful and lyrical and comical. Trinidadians are verbal acrobats, and I love being on the island just to hear the people speak.

Monique Roffey

#13. Travelling, he'd always thought, was where he'd meet his other self. Somewhere in a foreign place, he would bump into the bit of himself which was lost.

Monique Roffey

#14. Born on an island, I could swim before I could walk, thrown many times into swimming pools and warm transparent Caribbean waters: sink or swim, that was my first lesson. While I'm not a natural athlete, I'm still a strong swimmer and feel a great affinity with the sea.

Monique Roffey

#15. I was an observant but dreamy child. I had a lazy eye and wild curls.

Monique Roffey

#16. All my books explore fatherhood. I look at what it means to have a big father figure at the centre: sometimes they're a good father, sometimes bad.

Monique Roffey

#17. The person I love most is the Dalai Lama. China destroyed his country, yet he says that it's imperative we show love for the Chinese.

Monique Roffey

#18. I knew I was missing out, missing this: the thrum of population, out here, in the street. I sailed by, a white ghost in their midst.

Monique Roffey

#19. That's what a poem is. Words which have a hidden meaning. A poem is like a secret.

Monique Roffey