El Anatsui Quotes
I come from a place where you have a lot of sky. But in New York City you have to really look up to realize that there is eventually sky, somewhere. ...Sky is not a common commodity.
Quotes to Explore
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Living in New York City is one constant, ongoing literary pilgrimage. For 20 years, I lived among the ghosts of great writers and walked where they had walked.
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I never saw movies I was in because my mom told me that would be prideful, being stuck on yourself.
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Events at home, at work, in the street - these are the bases for a story.
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There's not much money in Tallahassee. Not many people can leave Tallahassee because they don't have the means.
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Workmen's compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold consolations, if there be no employment.
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Caste is not just a division of labour, it is a division of labourers.
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If the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.
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Some of my friends are giving me law books. I love reading those. It's like my relaxation.
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I have a very difficult time describing my music. Because I run into people in the hardware store and they go, 'Oh, you're a musician. So what kind of music do you play?' And I go, 'Uh, I've been doin' this for many years - I don't know what to call it.'
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I don't think I can plate-spin, I've turned loads of things down because I just can't get the time to do it.
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Singing is actually my favourite thing to do in the world - so when you don't consider yourself as talented at anything academically, and there is one thing you're good at, I think it's best to follow what you're good at.
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You all know that each title in the Chronicles has a chess theme; that's partly because of the overall design of the Chronicles themselves - the game of chess as an analogue of the game of life.
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I am not one of those who thinks that Congress needs to be in session 24 hours a day interfering in peoples' lives.
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But the threat posed by the radical Islamists represents an unusual conflict, unlike any experienced by our nation before: we face an enemy that is not a state.
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Well, then we got to know each other and eventually worked out a bit of idea of management.
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None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but licence.
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I wish everyone was a sci-fi geek because then there would be no violence in the world. There'd be no wars. There'd only be people e-mailing each other.
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You get a bad review with a novel, and it hurts. But I imagine if you get a bad review with a memoir, it hurts more because you can always say, 'Well, they didn't like my characters,' but when you're the character, it's like, 'Oh, yeah, they actually didn't like me.'
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A lot of people, they've been saying to me, oh don't get married. It ruins everything. And I'm like, damn.
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Scott Fitzgerald said famously that "he who invented consciousness would have a lot to be blamed for." But he also forgot that without consciousness, he would have no access to true happiness or even the possibility of transcendence.
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...his head emerged cautiously, like that of a snail taking a look around after a thunderstorm.
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It may not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is the right thing to do. Always.
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Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.
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I come from a place where you have a lot of sky. But in New York City you have to really look up to realize that there is eventually sky, somewhere. ...Sky is not a common commodity.
