Binyavanga Wainaina Quotes
We are a mixed up people. We have mixed up ways of naming, too... When my father's brothers and sisters first went to colonial schools, they had to produce a surname. They also had to show they were good Christians by adopting a western name. They adopted my grandfather's name as surname. Wainaina.
Quotes to Explore
-
Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas.
-
Nothing is over and done with. Nothing. Not even your malice.
-
Thousands of years and many civilizations have defined a marriage as the union between one man and one woman. With few exceptions, those civilizations that did not follow that perished.
-
It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.
-
It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like.
-
I support many organizations that I feel are doing the right thing, like Alonzo Mourning's foundation, Alicia Keys' foundation, the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and other well-established foundations. I kick out a lot of time and money wherever I can.
-
Dress codes and gestures and attitudes have always inspired me, as has youth culture in general, although now I question it more. If you analyze youth cultures over history, there has always been something strict about them - you have to be like this or like that.
-
One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.
-
I think there's nothing more amazing than helping people every day.
-
If my client calls me and says, 'I'm going to a friend's premiere,' I'll say, 'Come over and let's do something cute.' And I won't bill them for that.
-
A culture produces ideas which are being explored, which of interest to that culture at that moment. And I think one of the things a writer can do is to take those ideas and go a bit further with them.
-
I don't think we can go back to the old days. But I think that what the government needs to do is it needs to make sure that the pricing is fair, that you don't have monopolies out there, so that people don't have a chance to compete fairly.
-
In England I am not English, in India I am not Indian. I am chained to the 1,000 square miles that is Trinidad; but I will evade that fate yet.
-
A lot of times people hide their quirks when they're first getting to know a person.
-
Life is so impermanent that it's not about somebody else or things around me, it's about knowing you are completely alone in this world and being content inside.
-
A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.
-
When I write a goal down - and I truly write them down - it becomes a part of me. That's a contract that I sign with myself to say, 'I don't care what happens - I'm going to stay on this path. I'm going to try and see this through; I'm going to give it my best shot, my best effort.'
Gail Devers -
Hebrew is my first language, so it's really the most personal and the most simple. When I write in Hebrew, I don't look for sophistication in music; it's just pure emotion that comes out.
-
Roaming through the jungle of 'oohs' and 'ahs,' searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats.
-
I look a lot like my father and his mother.
-
I cannot be separated from Rudy Giuliani. But I am also not Rudy Giuliani.
-
Before my mother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's, I had heard of the disease, but hadn't known anyone who had suffered from it.
-
I sometimes think God is a s-t - and he wouldn't be worth it otherwise. He's much more interesting when he's a s-t.
-
We are a mixed up people. We have mixed up ways of naming, too... When my father's brothers and sisters first went to colonial schools, they had to produce a surname. They also had to show they were good Christians by adopting a western name. They adopted my grandfather's name as surname. Wainaina.
