10 Inspiring quotes from Teju Cole's 'Open City'

zainab quadri

July 7, 2015 3:08 PM

This book is packed with so many interesting and thought provoking quotes. Here are a few i really liked.

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This book is packed with so many interesting and thought provoking quotes. Here are a few i really liked:

1. “I adore imaginary monsters, but I am terrified of real ones.”

2. “To be alive, it seemed to me, as I stood there in all kinds of sorrow, was to be both original and reflection, and to be dead was to be split off, to be reflection alone.”

3. “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.”

4. “Things don't go away just because you choose to forget them.”

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5. “It is dangerous to live in a secure world.”

6. “It wasn't a deception: all lovers live on partial knowledge.”

7. “As he drank more and more, he became inebriated, and began to fashion damaged human beings.”

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8. “I wonder sometimes how far Gandhi would have gotten if the British had been more brutal. If they had been willing to kill masses of protesters. Dignified refusal can only take you so far. Ask the Congolese.”

9. "We owe ourselves our lives.”

10. “Perhaps this is what we mean by sanity: that, whatever our self-admitted eccentricities might be, we are not villains of our own stories.”

Here is a video of Teju Cole, reading excerpts from his book, 'Open City' at the European College of Liberal Arts of Bard (ECLA of Bard) and the Berlin international literature festival.

zainab quadri