Quotessence
Home / Authors / Teju Cole
Teju Cole

Teju Cole Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllWritingKindBookPeopleWayKnowsMightNovelCitiesLong

Famous Teju Cole Quotes

“Our biggest art forms are film and television, and there hasn't been a great film about 9/11 yet, nor has there been a great television series. Something like The Wire gives us a rich and fully achieved picture of the wasteful, cruel War on Drugs; something like The White Ribbon gives a perspective on World War I that could only have been presented long after the event itself.”

WorldGivingLongHas BeensArtWarFilmFormWhiteRichEventsTelevisionPerspectiveDrugSeriesWar Of The WorldsWorld War IWireWar On DrugsRibbonsGreat FilmFilm And Television
Author:Teju Cole
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingBookSelfCharacterAnswersFictionCuttingNew YorkPersonalityNeededAddIncludingGenerousExplicitMatchingJuliusConcealing
Author:Teju Cole
Create image

“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.”

StillsBookMatterFactsFictionNovelExampleSpeechGratefulCriticsCriticalLikesConventionalComplaintsMachineryGreat NovelsCompilationCoetzee
Author:Teju Cole
Create image

“Joyce's writing in Dubliners contains some of the most unshowily beautiful sentences in the English language. I learned from him that if you write a good, clean line of English, you can get under a reader's skin. The reader won't even know why, but there you are. Didion, Berger, the many others I mentioned above, and many, many poets I haven't mentioned. Writers of this calibre are the moving targets the rest of us are always chasing.”

IfsKnowsWritingBeautifulMovingLanguageLinesHavensPoetReaderSkinsCleanSentencesTargetChasingEnglish LanguageJoyce
Author:Teju Cole
Create image

“I became aware of just how fleeting the sense of happiness was, and how flimsy its basis: a warm restaurant after having come in from the rain, the smell of food and wine, interesting conversation, daylight falling weakly on the polished cherrywood of the tables. It took so little to move the mood from one level to another, as one might push pieces on a chessboard. Even to be aware of this, in the midst of a happy moment, was to push one of those pieces, and to become slightly less happy.”

LittlesMomentsMightMovingFallInterestingLevelsPiecesConversationRainBasesTablesWineWarmSmellMoodRestaurantsMidstFleetingDaylightPolishedFood And WineHappy MomentsInteresting Conversation
Author:Teju Cole
Create image

“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.”

MadeDifferentLightCitiesFireAirNew YorkProjectsWeightPressureLuxurySubstanceParksShopsHotelNeighborhoodPsychicsHousingBright LightsFire EscapesCity ParksLuxury HotelsAir Pressure
Book:Open City: A Novel
Create image