106 Quotes by Alexandra Fuller

Yes, as an oppressed people, American Indians have this epic burden, but first and foremost, they're human: sometimes a mess, sometimes funny or sad, at times very wise, and other times not wise at all - a lot like me.

I think for writers, I think it's really important to court eviction from your tribe: to expose things and to wake people up. And so I think that that can feel like a violation to the people you love the most.

I write and I read, and I write and read my way into and out of ideas and life. And that's what we do. That's what storytellers do.

I grew up in southern Africa but was born in England, so my family was afflicted with the stiff upper lip of the British. When coupled with the violence we saw as children, that can be a fatal combination. Fortunately, I have an outlet for trauma in my writing.

The only process that comes close to the process of writing a whole book, in my experience, is childbirth. There is this moment when you think you can't possibly labour for another moment, and that, paradoxically, is when you have to push hardest.

For a memoir to really succeed, the author has to do such hard work before they come to the page. They have to do a brutal self-examination of everything they believe to be true.

In Africa, we filled up all available time busily doing not much, and then we wasted the rest.

It is the perpetual tragedy of all families: each of us believe our congenital pathologies and singular pains end with us.

I look around and pay attention to what around me is not being talked about, and then I talk about it with as much humour and honesty as I can. All my books have been that way.