Chris Abani Quotes

17 quotes in 322 categories

• My friend Ronald Gottesman says...that the cause of all our trouble is the belief in an essential, pure identity: religious, ethnic, historical, ideological.
• What we know about who we are comes from stories. It's the agents of our imagination who really shape who we are.
• If you want to know about Africa, read our literature - and not just 'Things Fall Apart,' because that would be like saying, 'I've read…
• Fiction and poetry are my first loves, but the really beautiful lyrical essay can do so much that other forms cannot.
• In this time of the Internet and nonfiction, to be on an actual bookshelf in an actual bookstore is exciting in itself.
• People think that writing is writing, but actually writing is editing. Otherwise, you're just taking notes
• What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost…
• You know, you can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror. But the simple act of kindness from a complete…
• What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost…
• Men do communicate, often very directly, but women sometimes cannot accept how simple what we have to say is.
• That women are mysterious and unknowable is something every young man grows up believing. Men, on the other hand, never think of themselves as mysterious…
• My books are often shelved around those of Chinua Achebe and Margaret Atwood, or Chimamanda Adichie and Monica Ali. All of this depends, of course,…
• My search is always to find ways to chronicle, to share and to document stories about people, just everyday people. Stories that offer transformation, that…
• The Igbo used to say that they built their own gods. They would come together as a community, and they would express a wish. And…
• The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things.
• I read mostly Irish, African, Japanese, South American, and African writers. You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern…
• Every successful artist comes from a family - parents or siblings or both - who, although equally gifted, chose not to pursue the treacherous and…

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