My elder brother used to write a quote on the inside cover of every one of his books. When I was younger, I liked to open his book and read through it, full of joy and expectation. From this came my love for quotes and sayings. I still remember one in which he wrote the text, ‘The world is a stage and men and women are merely players.’ I read it, closed his book, put it back in his drawer and walked away feeling as if I had stolen a piece of chocolate from the fridge.

On another of his books, he wrote, ‘La bave du crapaud ne salit pas la blancheur du lys.’ That was awesome and it remained one of my favourite quotes for very many years. Learning these quotes felt likelearning the Nunchaku, I felt like they made me stronger and in a better position to express myself. But mostly I have always found that a proverb is like a lighthouse, they make you see the light through darkness.

My father, even though he stopped school when he was only 7-8 years old and never learned much English or French, also had so many of these quotes he would use whenever he wanted to teach us something. To teach us to be patient and not compare ourselves with others, he would say ‘Ena enn kozé ki dir, sak fler fléri kan ariv so létan.’ To encourage us to stay away from bad influences, he would tell us, ‘Kan ou trouv dilo malprop, fodré pa ou avoy enn ros ladan pou li sot lor ou.’

One day when my cousin who was doing his HSC was finding it hard to find a teacher for his General Paper tuition, he came to see my father who knew a popular and well respected teacher.

My father brought my cousin along and went to see the teacher at his home. The teacher came out of his tuition class to greet my father who introduced my cousin to him. The guy refused to accept my cousin in his batch, saying, ‘Ou ti bizin vinn get mwa koumansman lané. Mo klas inn fini ranpli, tro tar aster.’ My father smiled and said, ‘Ou koné, éna enn kozé ki dir, il n’est jamais trop tard pour bien faire.’

Even though the teacher probably knew a thousand quotes himself, I think he could not think of a come back at that moment and said, ‘Ok, dir li vini lindi, mo pou fer enn plas pou li.’

There is also the time when I went for an interview for scholarship after completing my studies. I had done really well in all the subjects except for one paper in Economics where all the students from our class surprisingly got poor results. I was expecting the board to ask me about it and indeed they did, ‘How come you were so brilliant in your other papers and in this one you did so poorly?’

In the spur of the moment I said, ‘I think it’s because there is a foolish corner even in the brain of the wisest man.’ None of them was expecting this and they couldn’t help smiling. Long story short, I got the scholarship and I like to think it was one time when a quote served me really well.

When I was studying, one day we were discussing how some people like to take themselves so seriously and my friend said, ‘les cimetières sont remplis de gens qu’on disait indispensables.’ In one sentence he had captured exactly the gist of what was going on and I immediately thought, ‘Oh wow! I need to use this quote some time, it’s too good.’

And of course, my respect for this guy shot sky high.

Years later, I joined the field of communication and progressively became more confident expressing myself and coming up with my own original thoughts. My colleagues and friends would often turn to me whenever they needed a quote for someone’s birthday or for some special occasion. One day I thought of a line and asked my colleague, ‘What do you think of this? Mon coeur est un cerf-volant qu’un arbre a fait prisonnier?’ He asked me to repeat it, I did so thinking he was impressed, then I looked at him and saw him feverishly typing on his phone.

When I asked him what he was doing, he said, ‘Mo pe avoy sa mo 35 mwa. Fodré pa les nanyé perdi sa bann dialog-la.’

One day my elder brother was writing the final project for his course and when it was nearly over, he told me, ‘Mo pansé bizin ékrir enn zoli pensée koumansman. Ki kapav ékrir?’

At that moment I felt like life had come full circle. From the days I used to hide and read his quotes, now I had the chance to share one with him. So I told him the story of the book Madame Bovary. I told him, ‘You know when Gustave Flaubert wrote the first draft of the novel that was to make him famous the world over, he showed it to some of his friends but was told they were not really impressed. Gustave Flaubert then said, It’s only a draft, I need to fix the pieces together.’ And he added, ‘It is not the pearls that make the necklace but the thread that joins them together.’

So I told my brother to print this quote itself on the inside cover of his project, ‘It is not the pearls that make the necklace but the thread that joins them together.’

One day when I was working as lecturer for students in marketing and communications, one of the marketing students was stressed and she told me that she had no idea how to design her stand for the end-of-year showcase. There was only one day left and everybody had done very colourful stuffs and she was afraid she would look like the ugly duckling. I told her, ‘You know most of the others, they will be judged by their design, but you are a marketing person, people will want to see your confidence, your vision and your determination. Why don’t you go for a clean stand with only one quote in cut out on your wall? I think your stall will stand out from the others in this way.’

She was quite impressed with the idea and asked me, What can I put as quote?

I said, Why don’t you say, ‘The whole world steps aside for the one who knows where she is going.’