Quotes by Teju Cole

Teju Cole

A MOB is not, as is so often said, mindless. A MOB is single-minded.

Mindless

Said

Being Nigerian is a strong part of my identity. Being American is a strong part of my identity. And there are important parts of who I am that really have nothing to do with my national connection.

Important

Strong

Who I Am

Each neighborhood of the city appeared to be made of a different substance, each seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and shuttered shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and city parks.

Air

Light

New York

For purposes of marketing, writers are designated as poets, novelists, or something else. But writing is about matchmaking, an attempt to marry sensations with apt words.

Marketing

Novelists

Writing

I couldn’t remember what life was like before I started walking.

Remember

Walking

I just realized that we’re facing here is an empathy gap. And this was just another way to generate conversation about something that nobody wanted to look at.

Empathy

Gaps

Looks

I schooled in the Boston area.

Areas

Boston

Schooled

I’m grateful for the likes of Kundera, Murnane, Markson, Berger, and, in his recent work, Coetzee. But no matter how celebrated they are, critics still consider them askance. Elizabeth Costello, for example, is a great novel, but it got quite a critical panning when it was published. The complaint was that it was simply a book of speeches, without the machinery of conventional fiction. Markson’s books are compilations of facts and alleged facts, very artfully.

Book

Grateful

Speech

I’m not trying to be in your face and take a picture that is like a journalistic kind of image. I got interested in a kind of complicated, compiled, visual field.

Faces

Fields

Trying

It is a work of psychogeography, albeit in a less explicit sense than Iain Sinclair’s or Will Self’s. It had to be fiction though, because I needed that freedom of including whatever belonged, and cutting out whatever didn’t. The main fiction in it was matching Julius’ generous and self-concealing character to New York’s generous and self-concealing character. I think this also adds to my answer about New York’s personality in the book.

Book

Character

New York

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Air

Areas

Art

Australia

Book

Boston

Bullshit

Character

Cities

Comfort

Dangerous

Doe

Emotional

Empathy

Environment

Faces

Fall

Feelings

Fields

Flavor

Focus

Gaps

Grateful

Hands

Helping

Ideas

Important

Interesting

Justice

Knowing

Light

Long

Looks

Marketing

Mindless

Moments

New York

Novelists

Palimpsest

Past

People

Phones

Potatoes

Preparation

Promise

Quality

Reading

Reality

Remember

Rioting

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

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The Behaviour Diary

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The Dating Diary

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The Relationship Therapist

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Quotes by Teju Cole

Teju Cole

A MOB is not, as is so often said, mindless. A MOB is single-minded.

Being Nigerian is a strong part of my identity. Being American is a strong part of my identity. And there are important parts of who I am that really have nothing to do with my national connection.

Each neighborhood of the city appeared to be made of a different substance, each seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and shuttered shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and city parks.

For purposes of marketing, writers are designated as poets, novelists, or something else. But writing is about matchmaking, an attempt to marry sensations with apt words.

I couldn’t remember what life was like before I started walking.

I just realized that we’re facing here is an empathy gap. And this was just another way to generate conversation about something that nobody wanted to look at.

I schooled in the Boston area.

I’m not trying to be in your face and take a picture that is like a journalistic kind of image. I got interested in a kind of complicated, compiled, visual field.

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Topics by Teju Cole

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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