All Dinaw Mengestu Quotes
- There are those who wake up each morning to conquer the day, and then there are those of us who wake up only because we… Afternoon
- It's hard sometimes to remember why we do anything in the first place. It's nice to think there's a purpose, or even a real decision… Always True
- It is always the first and last steps that are the hardest to take. We walk away and try not to turn back, or we… All
- The world around us is alive, he would have said, with our emotions and thoughts, and the space between any two people are charged with… Act
- My mother could never have said she loved fall, but as she walked down the steps with her suitcase in hand toward the red Monte… Afternoon
- The imagined memories had to have as much weight as the real, or we had to at least pretend they did to such a degree… All
- At night my father often heard sporadic gunfire mixed in with the sound of dogs howling. If the war came closer, soon there would be… Came
- We persist and linger longer than we think, leaving traces of ourselves wherever we go. If you take that away, then we all simply vanish. All
- I had lost too much of the heart and all the faith needed to stay afloat in a job where every human encounter felt like… Afloat
- Don't think about how your characters sound, but how they see. Watch the world through their eyes - study the extraordinary and the mundane through… Block
- You see, at the beginning we weren't fighters. We weren't yellers or throwers, even if we eventually came to be. It would take time and… Beginning
- I wrote my first book without being to Ethiopia since I was two years old. Book
- When I was growing up, Forest Park was full of integrated families. It was amazing. One my best friends was Vietnamese. Another one was half-Mexican,… Accent
- My parents never referenced Ethiopia that much, largely because of the circumstances under which we left. We left during a time of political upheaval, and… American
- In high school, I began to dig my way into Ethiopian history, and began to understand myself as a young man formed by multiple narratives. Began
- The MFA program did one great thing for me: It taught me how to be a better reader and critic. Nothing I wrote during my… Better
- The fact that I have always been deeply invested in politics, and African politics in particular, inevitably played a role in my first novel and,… Africa
- Ethnic divisions can definitely be exacerbated by a lack of natural resources, but those tensions become violent when people manipulate them for their own political… Become Violent
- I told my parents I was going to be a doctor and then a lawyer, but I never believed it and never tried. Believed
- I was always curious about the anxiety a person would feel when you open your mouth and you have an accent. You could have a… Accent
- Writers, especially those of us with roots in other countries, are rarely left to ourselves. We are asked to declare our allegiances, or they are… Allegiances
- As an undergraduate, I took a theology course titled Religion as Writing. If writing can be considered a form of faith, then inevitably doubt has… Accompany
- Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, the color of my skin and my rather peculiar background as an Ethiopian immigrant delineated the border of… Alone