Binyavanga Wainaina Quotes

I knew I didn't want to come out in the 'New Yorker'; it just felt wrong. It needed an African conversation.

Binyavanga Wainaina

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• Every good movie I watch, the hero becomes my favourite. I start blushing every time a hero romances a heroine.

  

  Hansika Motwani
  • Time
  • Good
  • Movie

• We were able in the Recovery Act to get a program where we increased our loan guarantees to 90 percent. Because we had that program, a bank wouldn't have to take that much risk.

  

  Karen Mills
  • Risk
  • Act
  • Recovery

• I have legendary massive breakfasts at hotels. I don't hold back. I'll get there at 7A.M. and I'll be the last out at 11 A.M., having gone up and down the buffet seven times.

  

  Calvin Harris
  • Up
  • Down
  • Back

• Our need for that exterior god that sits up there and judges us... will diminish and eventually disappear.

  

  Dan Brown
  • Up
  • God
  • Will

• Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

  

  Joanne Rowling
  • Power
  • Imagination
  • Innovation

• Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

  

  Garrison Keillor
  • May
  • Thought
  • Lies

• I don't want to overthrow the government. I wanna fire 'em.

  

  Gallagher
  • Want
  • Government
  • Fire

• This was more than just a cow - this was an entire career I was looking at.

  

  Gary Larson
  • Career
  • Looking
  • Cow

• Also we will be carrying food and clothes for the Expedition Two crew. And as well as spare parts for the EVA that will be conducted from the station in the following months.

  

  Umberto Guidoni
  • Food
  • Will
  • Clothes

• I want every kid to go to college and be like a normal student. I want them to be able to go to a movie, go to a concert. I want them to be able to have that opportunity. But if you're paying kids, are you going to pay a lineman less than you're paying a quarterback? I don't know how to explain that stuff.

  

  Larry Brown
  • Kids
  • Movie
  • Want

• I think to try to understand human behavior and why people do what they do, and what in their lives have shaped them and impacted them to be who they are, it's something. I mean, that's my entire life.

  

  Haley Bennett
  • People
  • Life
  • Why

• Democracy will win - because a government’s legitimacy can only come from citizens; because in this age of information and empowerment, people want more control over their lives, not less; and because, more than any other form of government ever devised, only democracy, rooted in the sanctity of the individual, can deliver real progress.

  

  Barack Obama
  • People
  • Real
  • Age

• A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will. Objects have the same appearance for everybody.

  

  Edgar Degas
  • Moments
  • Effort

• Slowly but inexorably crawling upon my consciousness and rising above every other impression, came a dizzying fear of the unknown; a fear all the greater because I could not analyse it, and seeming to concern a stealthily approaching menace; not death, but some nameless, unheard-of thing inexpressibly more ghastly and abhorrent.

  

  H. P. Lovecraft
  • Death
  • Fear
  • Unknown

• Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time. He wanted to expel the Jews.

  

  Benjamin Netanyahu
  • Time

• Crime, folly, sickness and all phenomena must be contemplated with complete freedom from fear aversion or shame. Otherwise we shall fail to see accurately, and interpret intelligently; in which case we shall be unable to outwit and outfight them.

  

  Aleister Crowley
  • Freedom
  • Fear

• How many is there, John?.Did you learn to whisper in a sawmill?

  

  Cormac McCarthy

• I was wrong to vote for this war. Unfortunately, I'll have to live with that forever. And the lesson I learned from it is to put more faith in my own judgment.

  

  John Edwards
  • Live
  • War
  • Faith

• My name is George Smoot III, and I AM smarter than a fifth-grader.

  

  George Smoot
  • Names
  • Smarter

• I don't go out of my way to be outrageous, I just go out of my way to look at things.

  

  Dave Allen
  • Outrageous
  • My Way

• I think music is a lifting force, I think love is the lifting force in the human condition. I think you see someone loving on their child, and it moves you, and you can't help it. It rings a bell inside of us that elevates us as human beings, and I treasure that. I think it's one of the few great things about human beings.

  

  David Crosby The Byrds
  • Great
  • Music
  • Help

• I knew I didn't want to come out in the 'New Yorker'; it just felt wrong. It needed an African conversation.

  

  Binyavanga Wainaina