51 Quotes by Aminatta Forna

Most writers I know go for word counts, and I used to be a journalist, so I guess that's ingrained.

No one ever sits you down at age eight and says, 'Aminatta, this is what's happened so far.' You have to work it out for yourself, and by the time you do, it's ancient history to many of the players. We're trying to make sense of the past, so we start to excavate our memories.

I don't have very many little fetishes, but the one I do have is that I like a particular mug to drink out of. It's just a small china cup, and I get very upset if my husband moves it.

I was always at heart a novelist and wanted to tell a bigger story, so I wanted to create people who told other kinds of truths than literal truths.

I temporarily became a surgeon for 'Memory of Love'. I spent two weeks in an operating theatre, watching amputations, and I loved it.

My childhood ended in this horrible way. I lived in a country where I didn't trust anybody.

The Watch is a powerful tale, courageous both in concept and creation: an ancient tale made modern, passed through different narrators in extraordinary shape-shifting prose that makes this not just an important novel, but a remarkable read.

I was brought up in a household where you stood up to be counted.

What ultimately happened is that my country had a war. I think it would be extraordinary, as a writer, not to want to write about that.