Language Quote by Taiye Selasi

“As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.”

Taiye Selasi

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More by Taiye Selasi

I wouldn't mind my book being called an African novel if it didn't invite lazy readings.

Taiye Selasi

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“loss” is a notion. No more than a thought. Which one forms or one doesn’t. With words. Such that one cannot lose, nor ever…

Taiye Selasi

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“Then Ghana, and the smell of Ghana, a contradiction, a cracked clay pot: the smell of dryness, wetness, both, the damp of earth and…

Taiye Selasi

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What distinguishes [Afropolitans] is a willingness to complicate Africa – namely, to engage with, critique, and celebrate the parts of Africa that mean most…

Taiye Selasi

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“und dass es in Nordamerika kaum zweieiige Zwillinge gab (ganz anders beispielsweise in Nigeria, wo Zwillinge die Norm waren).�”

taiye selasi

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Sight is subjective. We learned that in class.

Taiye Selasi

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“loss” is a notion. No more than a thought. Which one forms or one doesn’t. With words. Such that one cannot lose, nor ever…

Taiye Selasi

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When I'm working, I'm so narrowly focused on sound, language, rhythm, flow, that I rarely feel the emotion of the text. It's only after…

Taiye Selasi

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The big ideas always come in flashes. I don't really craft stories that much. I genuinely don't know where these people come from, and…

Taiye Selasi

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“They were doers and thinkers and lovers and seekers and givers, but dreamers, most dangerously of all. They were dreamer-women. Very dangerous women. Who…

Taiye Selasi

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The summer I finished my first novel 'Ghana Must Go,' I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lome to Cotonou to the deliciously…

Taiye Selasi

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I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn't that they are inaccurate, but that they're incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think…

Taiye Selasi

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Explore all 33 Taiye Selasi quotes

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Usually male directors have to use foul language to get the job done. But I never came down to that level as being a…

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The problem posed by indirect speech acts is the problem of how it is possible for the speaker to say one thing and mean…

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A man walks down the street. It's a street in a strange world. Maybe it's the third world. Maybe it's his first time around.…

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“I only have two words to say More or Less”

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It's like saying French shouldn't be taught because you don't understand it because it's new. Shakespeare is just like learning a new, exciting language.

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I am attracted to looking at the different things language can mean even in one sometimes quite ordinary utterance. Writing is partly about listening…

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