Quotes by Binyavanga Wainaina - Page 1

I love playing with words and texture.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Texture
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Every human being has a bit of gangster in him.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Bits
Gangsters
Humans
Being
Human Human Being Being
Bit
Gangster
Every
Human
Him
Human Being
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Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
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I'm not even sure I want to use the term 'coming out.'
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Term
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I want to be fighting for a society accountable towards its citizens.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Citizens
Accountable
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People reach an age... where somebody elses platform is no longer yours.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Age
People
Platforms
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People reach an age... where somebody else's platform is no longer yours.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Platform
Yours
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Every one, we, we homosexuals, are people, and we need our oxygen to breathe.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Breathe
Oxygen
Homosexuals
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All people have dignity. Theres nobody who was born without a soul and a spirit.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
People
Soul
Spirit
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All people have dignity. There's nobody who was born without a soul and a spirit.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Dignity
All People
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I like the idea of readers feeling a familiarity, whether its with Africa or childhood.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Childhood
Feelings
Ideas
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I like the idea of readers feeling a familiarity, whether it's with Africa or childhood.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Childhood
Familiarity
Africa
Readers
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I, Binyavanga Wainaina, quite honestly swear I have known I am a homosexual since I was five.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Homosexual
Honestly
Swear
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I’m extremely optimistic about rapid transformation and change of things in Africa in general.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Optimistic
Rapids
Transformation
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I'm extremely optimistic about rapid transformation and change of things in Africa in general.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Transformation
Africa
Rapid
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There is no country in the world with the diversity, confidence and talent and black pride like Nigeria.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Confidence
Country
Diversity
Nigeria
Pride
Talent
No Country
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Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Nelson
Mandela
Rainbows
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I knew I didn't want to come out in the 'New Yorker'; it just felt wrong. It needed an African conversation.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Conversation
African
New Yorker
Yorker
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Living in South Africa and periodically coming back to Kenya, my relationship with officialdom in Kenya was just insane.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Insane
South Africa
Africa
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Everywhere I go, I see young people: Confident, forward looking. I have seen them in Lagos, in Rwanda, in the suburbs of London.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
London
People
Young
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Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel prize.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Book
Nobel
Nobel Prize
Prize
Picture
African
Cover
Won
Unless
Well-Adjusted
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I am quite excited that Moi is leaving. Kenyans have changed. We have a free press, and it is no longer a situation of 'follow in my footsteps.'
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Footsteps
Free Press
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There's no point for me in being a writer and having all these blocked places where I feel I can't think freely and imagine freely. There just really is no point.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Blocked
No Point
Where Me Feel
Freely
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I believe in, and will to the best of my ability fight for, equal rights and freedom of opinion for everyone, regardless of colour, religion, nationality, orientation - you know the rest.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Believe
Colour
Equal
Equal Rights
Fighting
Nationality
Orientation
Rights
Regardless
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In kindergarten, we had this Irish Catholic headmistress called Sister Leonie, and I remember she would tell us, say, to put the crayons in the box. I remember thinking, 'Why is everyone finding this so easy? Why should the crayons be in the box?'
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Sister
Catholic
Box
Crayons
Irish Catholic
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It's like I was always not quite sure even how to move in space somehow; I would watch people and then copy them. I found it really hard to walk straight. My brother was always on at me for walking off the pavement. I guess I always expected people to bring me back into line.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Pavement
Copy
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What is astonishing is that globalised technology, like Whatsapp and Viber, really gives a lot of leeway to negotiating spaces and to keeping one's identity. So people are able to be more receptive as a gay community to be part of an environment that is going to challenge the law.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Astonishing
Gay Community
Negotiating
Receptive
Whatsapp
Leeway
Spaces
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We are a mixed up people. We have mixed up ways of naming, too... When my father's brothers and sisters first went to colonial schools, they had to produce a surname. They also had to show they were good Christians by adopting a western name. They adopted my grandfather's name as surname. Wainaina.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Adopted
Brothers And Sisters
Grandfather
Produce
Western
Brothers
Sisters
Good Father People
Christians
Colonial
Mixed
Naming
Schools
Ways
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When I went to live in South Africa, I immediately began to understand what went wrong. Because here was a place supposed to be under apartheid - I arrived there in 1991 - but here a black person had more say and had more influence over his white government than an average Kenyan had over the Moi government.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Apartheid
Average
South Africa
Africa
Immediately
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I have learned that I, we, are a dollar-a-day people (which is terrible, they say, because a cow in Japan is worth $9 a day). This means that a Japanese cow would be a middle class Kenyan... a $9-a-day cow from Japan could very well head a humanitarian NGO in Kenya. Massages are very cheap in Nairobi, so the cow would be comfortable.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Class
Japan
Mean
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It is a pink and blue feeling, as sharp as clear sky; a slight breeze, and the edges of Lake Nakuru would rise like the ruffle at the edge of a skirt; and I am pockmarked with whole-body pinpricks of potentiality. A stretch of my body would surely stretch as far as the sky. The whole universe poised, and I am the agent of any movement.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Blue
Lakes
Sky
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International correspondents with their long dictaphones, and dirty jeans, and five hundred words before whiskey, are slouched over the red velvet chairs, in the VIP section in the front, looking for the Story: the Most Macheteing Deathest, Most Treasury Corruptest, Most Entrail-Eating Civil Warest, Most Crocodile-Grinning Dictatorest, MOst Heart-Wrenching and Genociding Pulitzerest, Most Black Big-Eyed Oxfam Child Starvingest, Most Wild African Savages Having AIDS-Ridden Sexest with Genetically Mutilatedest Girls...The Most Authentic Real Black Africanest story they can find.
Binyavanga Wainaina / Author
Girl
Children
Real
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Binyavanga Wainaina Quotes - Page 1

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