It seemed that everywhere you went, people quickly adapted to the way they had to live, and called it Life.

Being a teacher at a restaurant in the town where you lived was a little like being a TV star.

While it's true that some writers, when taking on love and war, find the task too big, or only succeed in one but not the other, Mengestu tracks both themes with authority and feeling.

Good writing is good writing, and I'm so happy when I read it.

You had only one chance for a signature in life, but most people left no impression.

The child who was happy with herself meant the parents had won the jackpot.

For me, a novel relying too heavily on a single idea might be a dry, deadly thing unless it possesses an animating force.

People like to warn you that by the time you reach the middle of your life, passion will begin to feel like a meal eaten long ago, which you remember with great tenderness.

After a certain age, you felt a need not to be alone. It grew stronger, like a radio frequency, until finally it was so powerful that you were forced to do something about it.

Wasn't the whole point of being an artist, or at least part of it, that you didn't have to wear a tie?

The generation that had information, but no context. Butter, but no bread. Craving, but no longing.

Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise...

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.

Ethnic conflict is a line between religion and stupidity.

I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

It's always good to keep people guessing.

Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding - and He has a sense of humor.

When I became a man, and I started to understand the difference between the truth and what your parents are supposed to tell you, there's a difference, know what I mean?

A national language is a band of national union.

The fetters of tyranny were not stricken from America for the sake of Americans alone.

Without action, we are going to continue to allow Iran to be a safe harbor for terrorists, see its economy further deteriorate, and see the Middle East further destabilize.