Chris Abani famous quotes

What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion.
-- Chris Abani

#Simple #Compassion #World

You know, you can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror. But the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you.
-- Chris Abani

#Kindness #Heart #Simple

What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion. In South Africa they have a phrase called ubuntu. Ubuntu comes out of a philosophy that says, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.
-- Chris Abani

#Philosophy #Simple #Compassion

That women are mysterious and unknowable is something every young man grows up believing. Men, on the other hand, never think of themselves as mysterious or confusing, and we are often at a loss as to why women want to figure us out.
-- Chris Abani

#Growing Up #Believe #Loss

Fiction and poetry are my first loves, but the really beautiful lyrical essay can do so much that other forms cannot.
-- Chris Abani

#Beautiful #First Love #Fiction

In this time of the Internet and nonfiction, to be on an actual bookshelf in an actual bookstore is exciting in itself.
-- Chris Abani

#Bookstores #Nonfiction #Internet

If I dont get at least one e-mail every ten minutes, I feel unloved. Even junk mail makes me feel seen. Sad, I know. Sigh.
-- Chris Abani

#Junk #Mail #Minutes

Every successful artist comes from a family - parents or siblings or both - who, although equally gifted, chose not to pursue the treacherous and difficult path of the artist.
-- Chris Abani

#Sibling #Successful #Artist

My search is always to find ways to chronicle, to share and to document stories about people, just everyday people. Stories that offer transformation, that lean into transcendence, but that are never sentimental, that never look away from the darkest things about us.
-- Chris Abani

#People #Everyday #Looks

The truth is, everything we know about America, everything Americans come to know about being American, isn't from the news. I live there. We don't go home at the end of the day and think, "Well, I really know who I am now because the Wall Street Journal says that the Stock Exchange closed at this many points." What we know about how to be who we are comes from stories. It comes from the novels, the movies, the fashion magazines. It comes from popular culture.
-- Chris Abani

#Fashion #Wall #Home

The problem is we're looking for something that doesn't exist. We're looking for authenticity. There is no such thing as authenticity. There is either good art or bad art. Art is never about its content. It's about its scaffolding.
-- Chris Abani

#Art #Problem #Authenticity

There was a positive side to not trying at something: you could always pretend that your life would have been different if you had.
-- Chris Abani

#Trying #Different #Sides

I think it's an aggregation of all of the small acts that are really transformative. I think a group of small acts transform the individual. And maybe when the individual transforms, collectively we transform.
-- Chris Abani

#Thinking #Groups #Individual

I truly believe that writing is a continuum--so the different genres and forms are simply stops along the same continuum. Different ideas that need to be expressed sometimes require different forms for the ideas to float better.
-- Chris Abani

#Believe #Writing #Ideas

Your anatomy is a mystery that nobody bothers explaining to us. Even when we think we have mastered one woman's body, every body is different.
-- Chris Abani

#Women #Thinking #Different

I have not spoken in three years: not since I left boot camp. It has been three years of a senseless war, and though the reasons for it are clear, and though we will continue to fight until we are ordered to stop--and probably for a while after that--none of us can remember the hate that led us here. We are simply fighting to survive the war. It is a strange place to be at fifteen, bereft of hope and very nearly of your humanity. But that is where I am nonetheless.
-- Chris Abani

#Hate #War #Fighting

Before you speak, my friend, remember, a spiritual man contain his anger. Angry words are like slap in de face.
-- Chris Abani

#Spiritual #Anger #Men

I think a book that is over 400 pages should be split in two. I don't know that there's anything that interesting that can go on for 700 pages. I think that is a little bit indulgent.
-- Chris Abani

#Book #Thinking #Two

Men do communicate, often very directly, but women sometimes cannot accept how simple what we have to say is. We seldom play games--we aren't that sophisticated.
-- Chris Abani

#Simple #Men #Games

I read everywhere. It's like a bodily function. I don't need quiet. I write and read with the TV on. I follow the TV show while I read. TV doesn't require a lot of brainpower.
-- Chris Abani

#Reading #Writing #Tv Shows

What we know about who we are comes from stories. It's the agents of our imagination who really shape who we are.
-- Chris Abani

#Imagination #Stories #Agents

If you want to know about Africa, read our literature - and not just 'Things Fall Apart,' because that would be like saying, 'I've read 'Gone with the Wind' and so I know everything about America.'
-- Chris Abani

#Motivation #Fall #Inspiration

You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style.
-- Chris Abani

#Darkness #Style #Literature

Sometimes we say we want an end to hate or racism or sexism. But we all participate in keeping these structures alive. If everyone decided to relinquish the past what would happen to people who feel that there hasn't been proper atonement made to them? And what happens to the person who feels that the constant atonement is their identity?
-- Chris Abani

#Hate #Past #Racism

My mom taught me to read when I was two or three. When I was five I read and wrote well enough to do my nine-year older brother's homework in exchange for chocolate or cigarettes. By the time I was 10, I was reading Orwell, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and the Koran. I was reading comic books too.
-- Chris Abani

#Mom #Brother #War

Nigerians are everywhere. There's an old joke, particularly about the Ibos, that when you finally land on Mars, you're going to find a Nigerian there who has a shop that is selling Coca-Cola--who took a speculative trip 20 years ago and has been waiting for everyone else to arrive.
-- Chris Abani

#Years #Land #Waiting

I didn't leave Africa, I left Nigeria, and for political reasons. But ... I've never, never left Africa, and I certainly never left what it means to be Ibo. That is something you carry with you.
-- Chris Abani

#Mean #Political #Reason

As with much of the world's problems, they become public--or much more of interest--the moment they begin to impact the West.
-- Chris Abani

#Impact #World #West

The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things.
-- Chris Abani

#Opportunity #Down And #Privilege

Here's the thing: You rescue us every day in small, quiet ways, so why not in this way? Let us into your mystery, tell us how you would like to be loved, show us how to see you, really see you.
-- Chris Abani

#Why Not #Way #Quiet

Elvis, stop dat! You know it is taboo to whistle at night. You will attract a spirit.
-- Chris Abani

#Night #Spirit #Taboo

Much of the image of the amazingness of America comes from the movies into other cultures. And it's much the same thing when you reverse it. Much of Africa is presented through poverty, through drought and war. [But] you're not presenting people, you're not presenting countries, you're not presenting complexity, and so people can't care about an amorphous mass called Africa.
-- Chris Abani

#Country #War #Other Cultures

My friend Ronald Gottesman says...that the cause of all our trouble is the belief in an essential, pure identity: religious, ethnic, historical, ideological.
-- Chris Abani

#Religious #Historical #Identity

People think that writing is writing, but actually writing is editing. Otherwise, you're just taking notes
-- Chris Abani

#Writing #Thinking #Editing

The Internet is really our meeting place. We have this amazing listserv. Every time I log onto it I feel a sense of pride, because if you log on and say, "Oh I was just in San Diego and I was in a park and I saw a lion," the flurry of replies on average is just like--wow! All these existential questions about what it means to be an African, and never having seen a lion at home, but having seen a lion here. Everything you say turns into this real philosophical debate--it's incredible in so many ways. And it's an invigorating place to be.
-- Chris Abani

#Real #Philosophical #Home

Something that had the quality of a dimly lit stage set just before the curtains rise on opening night. There was a rhythm to it, a beckoning, and a bittersweet tear in time.
-- Chris Abani

#Night #Tears #Quality

We are hunting the demons that haunt others. We get a smell and off we go. And you know why, Sunil? You know why we are so good at hunting the demons of others? Because we are so good, gifted even, at stalking and evading our own. But all demons hunters think that they are really heroes, and you know what all heroes need?
-- Chris Abani

#Hero #Thinking #Hunting

Time was the only variable in every equation of power and oppression--how long before the pot boiled over.
-- Chris Abani

#Long #Variables #Oppression

I think that most writers who are trying to write important and difficult books are in many ways putting their own humanity into question. Sometimes the journey is finding out where you stand in relationship to your own humanity and to the humanity of others.
-- Chris Abani

#Book #Writing #Journey