Taiye Selasi Quotes
So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.

Quotes to Explore
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People get TV deals by doing something in their grandmother's basement. It is definitely the wave. Everybody is trying to do all that stuff. I mean, the Internet is the only reason that I've gotten work is because I've somehow created a line and people have seen it. And then I've been asked to auditions.
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On the Left, the best and brightest go into politics - Barack Obama is the epitome of the perfect leftist. On the Right, the best and brightest go make money. Very few conservatives want to endure all the nonsense you have to put up with to run for office.
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There's always going to be a little bit of autobiographical content to everything. It's how you lend some authority to what you write - you give it that weight by drawing on your direct experiences and indirect experiences from people that you know well, or a little.
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I really like performing for people.
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My plans are not to open a restaurant, but what I would like to do is open a kitchen somewhere in D.C. proper and have a chef's table where people can come and taste my food without having to have a catered event.
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I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.
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As a former English major, I have always been fascinated by the connections between literature and history.
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Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.
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I changed the city of New York. I gave people back their morale.
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Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed.
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People would get Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence all mushed together in their brains, and, bless their hearts, it would come out Carol Lawrence.
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The demand in India is to have a hit, which becomes a promotion for the movie and makes people come to the theater. You have five songs and different promotions based on those. But when I do Western films, the need for originality is greater. Then I become very conscious about the writing.
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Quite understandably, people think that if there's a six-year gap or whatever, that it's taken me six years to make the album. It's not really like that at all.
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I am a huge supporter for cash for caulkers - which allows people to make improvement for energy efficient in their homes. We should do the same for Americans purchasing appliances and computers and for that matter, new air-conditioner and heating units.
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I don't want to forgive myself. That's why I hate psychoanalysis I think if you're guilty of something you should live with it. Get rid of it - how can you get rid of a real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.
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All people have a natural desire to be needed, to have their importance to others tangibly confirmed.
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I don't like to just talk about nothing, or less than nothing. If it's something interesting, I'm fine with it, but, 'Hey, Zack, how is your day?' People ask that, and somebody actually tells them what happened in their day? I don't have any real interest in that.
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We are working to understand the tastes of people born in the 1980s and 1990s - it is very different from my generation. We do our own research. Marketing research companies, I think, are relatively academic.
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You'll go mad trying to figure out what people want. I don't bother. I write the stories I want to read.
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I don't engage in hypotheticals.
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I am certainly humbled to receive the American Voice Award and join the ranks of so many people that I admire.
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When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, 'Oh yes - I already have everything that I really need.'
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It happens. We're not robots. Just kind of get up and do it again.
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So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.