Teju Cole Quotes

I couldn't remember what life was like before I started walking.

Teju Cole

• Remember
• Walking

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• I started riding the whole 'fluffy' train, and it's a cute word and socially a lot more acceptable than someone saying is fat or obese. If you call a girl 'fat,' yo, she'll raise hell, but if you say, 'Aw girl, look at you, you're fluffy,' there's almost a sexy appeal to it.

  

  Gabriel Iglesias
  • Girl
  • Sexy
  • Train

• My dad's a Jew, and my mom's a WASP, so that should pretty much say it all. It was a comically dysfunctional family.

  

  Lake Bell
  • Family
  • Pretty
  • Dad

• I wanted a bronzer so I could look like I just came from Ibiza everyday.

  

  Iman
  • Like
  • Look
  • Everyday

• Fallout shelters are like bell-bottoms. They've gone in and out of favor.

  

  Irwin Redlener
  • Like
  • Gone
  • Favor

• I see that it is impossible to remember a long poem without practice and repetition; so is forgetfulness of the words of instruction engendered in the heart that has ceased to value them.

  

  Xenophon
  • Long
  • Heart
  • Remember

• It's great to play someone who's so unafraid of being who she is.

  

  Caitriona Balfe
  • Great
  • She
  • Play

• My parents actually ran drag clubs in Australia, which is how I grew up. It was normal for me. It was my normal. I knew the other kids didn't do it, but for me, it was life, and nothing was wrong with it. I would see nothing wrong with Beyonce having a drag queen nanny. And why not? Everyone needs one! And a great gay man in their life.

  

  Tabatha Coffey
  • Life
  • Up
  • Great

• When the EPA says that property owners, farmers, and livestock producers must stomach higher costs, longer delays, and bigger headaches, it's up to Congress to put up a roadblock.

  

  Sam Graves
  • Up
  • Congress
  • Property

• Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it's not like you're going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.

  

  Jack Kornfield
  • Different
  • Spiritual
  • Emotional

• Well, I'm not a critic, I'm just a worker. So, I'm always grateful for anything the critics say - good or bad.

  

  Mandy Patinkin
  • Good
  • Bad
  • Grateful

• It's like I've experienced quite a weird and unusual life, you know, being with a mom who's a single parent and struggling with money and things like that. It's really hard. And it brings a lot of other insecurities in life and a lot of other issues in life, in school and a bunch of other things.

  

  Fefe Dobson
  • Life
  • School
  • Money

• What I love about Tadashi is that he isn't a designer that designs only for a double-zero. He designs for double-Ds, you know? Women of all shapes and sizes can wear him.

  

  Octavia Spencer
  • Women
  • Know
  • Designer

• When I was four years old, my mother put me into a school for early music education where you get perfect pitch and harmony and composition.

  

  Yoko Ono
  • Music
  • School
  • Mother

• I want to live in Kolkata; I don't want to live in Europe - I can't write there. I write in Bengali, and I need to be surrounded by the Bengali language and culture.

  

  Taslima Nasrin
  • Live
  • Culture
  • Language

• I have never been in a natural place and felt that it was a waste of time. I never have. And it's a relief. If I'm walking around a desert or whatever, every second is worthwhile.

  

  Viggo Mortensen
  • Time
  • Walking
  • Desert

• It is always challenging bowling abroad - you don't get much spin, bounce. You do get bounce, but you don't get sideways spin. It is always drifting kind of spin you get.

  

  Harbhajan Singh
  • Kind
  • Always
  • Bounce

• Did I collect baseball cards? I've got 10 books full of plastic in my mother's house. All the Upper Decks, the Fleers, the Fleer Ultras. My grandfather brought me to the trade shows. I collected Marvel cards, too.

  

  Action Bronson
  • Mother
  • Baseball
  • Books

• Compassion is loving others enough to say or do what is appropriate from an empowered heart without attachment to the outcome.

  

  Gary Zukav
  • Heart
  • Compassion
  • Loving

• I can remember, when I was in college, irritating deeply somebody I was going out with, because he would ask me what I was thinking and I would say I was thinking nothing. And it was true.

  

  Joan Didion
  • Thinking
  • Remember
  • True

• Remember how I found you there alone in your electric chair, I told you dirty jokes until you smiled.

  

  Billy Joel
  • Remember
  • Alone
  • Dirty

• Sexiness, particularly in movies, is the chess game in the 'Thomas Crown Affair'. It's, it's, I don't know, but Faye Dunaway comes up a lot in that thinking. It's the subtlety of sexiness. The moment you try to be sexy, then it's not.

  

  Daniel Craig
  • Up
  • Thinking
  • Game

• People book me because of the songs I write, not because of the sets that I play, per se... I'm sure I'm going to be moving to a laptop really soon, but I was one of the last guys to let the vinyl go. I was crying. In my room, I still have thousands of records. I still pull them out and play them all the time.

  

  Kaskade
  • People
  • Time
  • Book

• Every campaign, Garry Wills once wrote, 'taught Nixon the same lesson: mobilize resentment against those in power.' History taught the same to many conservative and reactionary populist movements, whose real attitude to those in power and authority was one of a servile, envious, vicarious adoration.

  

  Christopher Hitchens
  • Real
  • Power
  • History

• I couldn't remember what life was like before I started walking.

  

  Teju Cole
  • Remember
  • Walking