Quotes from All Our Names

Dinaw Mengestu ·  272 pages

Rating: (3.8K votes)


“I wanted to ask him if that was part of the plan, but I knew he would have said yes. The plan was to make war; anything that followed was part of it.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“The men who beat me were driven as much by fear as hate.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“The men who beat me were driven as much by fear as hate. They had lashed out blindly and left me for dead. Isaac had yet to feel that distinct version of violence, and because I was certain that soon enough he would, and that odds were when he did he wouldn’t survive, I didn’t bother to point out the difference. He offered me his hand as he bent down to kiss my forehead—a gesture that was intended to say that there was more between us now than just friendship. I gripped his hand just as tightly, and even lifted my head to his lips to make sure that he understood that I felt exactly the same way.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“He held up his suitcase. “I’ve never had much to leave behind,” he said.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“didn’t know one another’s names or ages or reasons for being there, and that was fine, because silence isn’t the same when it’s shared. Its sad and lonely sides are shunted off.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names



“Silence isn't the same when it's shared.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“Through them, the story becomes an argument for a better way of seeing, which has always struck me as being one of the novel’s better gifts, something which it is uniquely poised to do, if only because it demands the reader’s imagination, and by doing so affirms our capacity to live beyond the limited means of our private lives. We read not to encounter the Other, but to see ourselves refracted in a different landscape, in a different time, in shoes and clothes that perhaps bear no resemblance to our own.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“I had lost too much of the heart and all the faith needed to stay afloat in a job where every human encounter felt like an anvil strung around my neck just when I thought I was nearing the shore.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“For the first time in my life, every day when I woke up I had clean clothes, and something to eat two, three times a day, as much as I wanted. Once I had that, I realized my revolution was over.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“As far as I could tell, no one had noticed us. I thought this was what it felt like to be invisible, but when I subtracted Isaac I realized that, until he came along, this was how I had always felt. Not invisible, but a natural part of the background, entitled to all the privileges that came with ownership.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names



“I was reminded that without him I made an impact on no one. I was seen, and perhaps occasionally heard, strictly by strangers, and always in passing. I was a much poorer man for this than I had ever thought.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“They stared at me, at Isaac, and then at the floor rather than at each other, as if they had long since come to terms with the fact that on any given evening men could burst into their house and do something terrible to them. There's no honest measure for the toll that sort of knowledge takes, whether the scale is the breadth of a single room or an entire city.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


“There is nothing more restless than men in power.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, quote from All Our Names


About the author

Dinaw Mengestu
Born place: in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Born date June 30, 1978
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“We're not ready for it - for people our age to die. We think we're safe for a while, but it's a dream. No one's safe.”
― William Boyd, quote from Any Human Heart


“He hesitated a moment, shifted the load to his left arm and mimed a sword stroke in the air. Crowley looked over his shoulder at the serving boy with some concern. “Planning on beheading me, are you?” he asked. Rafe smiled at him. “No sir, Ranger. Just getting the right side, like. Just shift yourself over while I put these down, before I forget which side is which, now.” Crowley”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Kings of Clonmel


“You can borrow my two-carat diamond stud earrings," Aphrodite said.

I stopped and looked back at her. "Huh?"

She shrugged. "That's as close to a declaration of love as you're gonna get from me.”
― P.C. Cast, quote from Destined


“His gun was a .357 Magnum, great for whale hunting. It was overkill for anything on two legs. That was human. I felt very human staring down that gun barrel.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, quote from The Lunatic Cafe


“spilled out like a volcanic eruption. Wardrobe”
― Victoria Hislop, quote from The Island


Interesting books

The Knight in the Panther's Skin
(1.3K)
The Knight in the Pa...
by Shota Rustaveli
Every Last Word
(25.6K)
Every Last Word
by Tamara Ireland Stone
Echo
(19.4K)
Echo
by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Reginald Bones: Part One
(341)
Reginald Bones: Part...
by Lucian Bane
The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
(11.2K)
The Virtue of Selfis...
by Ayn Rand
Twenty Years After
(17.5K)
Twenty Years After
by Alexandre Dumas

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.