36 Quotes by Taiye Selasi

She sleeps like a cocoyam. A thing without senses. She sleeps like his mother, unplugged from the world.

Es amüsiert Fola schon immer, dass die Afrikaner überhaupt nichts für Blumen übrighaben, das typische Desinteresse von Menschen, die etwas im Überfluss besitzen (oder von Menschen, die psychisch geschädigt sind – die chronischen Selbsthasser, die, auch wenn es genügend Beweise gibt, es einfach nicht akzeptieren wollen, dass etwas, das zu ihrer Heimat gehört und dort im Überfluss, im Übermaß vorhanden ist, ohne große Mühe – dass so etwas einen Wert haben kann).�

Adesso fissa le cose che brillano, catturato da tanta bellezza, e sa quello che già sapeva tanti inverni fa: quando ci si trova davanti a qualcosa di fragile e perfetto in un mondo che è brutto, terribile e crudele, conviene non dare nomi. Meglio fingere che la cosa non esista.

I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.

Being a twin, and being my sister's twin, is such a defining part of my life that I wouldn't know how to be who I am, including a writer, without that being somehow at the centre.

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 about contemporary African literature. The problem isn't that it's inaccurate, it's that it's incomplete.

Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide.

That's what makes writer's block so painful. You think the well has run dry, maybe somewhere in the heavens the tap has been turned off. That's beyond frightening.

As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.