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

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.

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.

But clearly life took people and shook them around until finally they were unrecognizable even to those who had once known them well. Still, there was power in once having known someone.

Formal business situations are likely to be the least revealing because these are the times when all of us are most likely to have our ‘game faces' on.

The only person, who can influence your life is YOU and it's never too late to recognize your worth.

Madonna's great instinctive intelligence was evident to me from her earliest videos.

I hear music and my feet just start moving.

If no producer, no movie.

I enjoy cooking for people I am close to.

I try to take a couple of young guys under my wing and tell them what I've learned, because you can't teach nobody if you don't know anything.

Much of spirituality today is an effort to change God to suit us. But he's not going to become more like us, we need to become more like him.

When someone gets a job, it better be clear what they did to get it.

The wife of a self-admirer must expect a very cold and negligent husband.