“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
Dinaw Mengestu
Born place: in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Born date June 30, 1978
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“So Musa was a simple god, a god of few words. His thick beard and strong arms made him seem like a giant who could have wrung the neck of any soldier in any ancient pharaoh's army. Which explains why, on the day when we learned of his death and the circumstances surrounding it, I didn't feel sad or angry at first; instead I felt disappointed and offended, as if someone had insulted me. My brother Musa was capable of parting the sea, and yet he died in insignificance, like a common bit player, on a beach that today has disappeared, close to the waves that should have made him famous forever.”
― Kamel Daoud, quote from The Meursault Investigation
“(Roarke) "Those who can't, teach. Isn't there some saying along those lines?"
(Eve) She gave him a blank look. "If you can't do something, how the hell can you teach somebody else to do it?”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Portrait in Death
“It never failed—I'd buy a new journal, write like a madwoman for ten pages, then lose total interest in the process. Three months later, I'd start the whole process all over again. I think I just liked buying new notebooks.”
― MaryJanice Davidson, quote from Undead and Unpopular
“It's always that one song that gets to you. You can hide, but the song comes to find you.”
― Rob Sheffield, quote from Love Is a Mix Tape
“For the benefit of other lady travelers, I wish to explain that my "Hawaiian riding dress" is the "American Lady's Mountain Dress," a half-fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles, and full Turkish trousers gathered into frills falling over the boots,—a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for mountaineering and other rough traveling, as in the Alps or any other part of the world. I. L. B. (Author's note to the second edition, November 27, 1879.) Once”
― Isabella L. Bird, quote from Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
Harold and Maude
A Long Long Way
Yours to Keep
The Tokyo-Montana Ex...
Wench
Scorched SkiesBookQuoters 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.
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