List of Chris Abani Quotes

Love Is At Once The Most Creative And Yet Simultaneously Destructive Force In The World, And Thus, In Our Lives. And I Don't Mean The Hallmark Sentimental Type Of Love, Although That Is Part Of It. But A Deeper Obligation That We Have To Each Other: The Obligation To Reflect Our Humanness At Each Other, To Reflect Back The Things Others Show Us And We, Them.

All My Characters Exist In Risk, In The Places We Are Either Too Afraid To Go To, Or Have Enough Privilege Not To Have To, But Whatever The Reason, These Characters I Fashion Go Before Us And Come Back Transformed For Us. For Me, At Least.

I Think Cities Are The Primordial Forests Of Our Time. We Evolve Faster As A Species In Cities. Cities Are Chaotic, Liminal Places Where The Many Aspects Of Human Potential, Good And/or Bad, Are Most Readily Magnified.

I Think That Those Of Us Who Are Ordinary Disappear Easily Into The Backdrop Of Life And We Take Things For Granted. We Often Wake Up In Our Lives And Wonder How We Got There. But The Characters I Create, The People I Am Drawn To, Are Quite Extraordinary (and Not Always In Wholesome Ways), And They Offer Us The Chance To Understand Who We Really Are And How We Became Who We Are.

Fire And Water Are Archetypes, The Split Sides Of Consciousness; One Aware, The Other, Not. The Two Parts Of Us That Desire Synthesis, Yet Resist It: The Self And The Shadow. But They Are Also The Element Of Chance, Of The Random Roll Of Dice.

Elvis, Stop Dat! You Know It Is Taboo To Whistle At Night. You Will Attract A Spirit.

I Think It's An Aggregation Of All Of The Small Acts That Are Really Transformative. I Think A Group Of Small Acts Transform The Individual. And Maybe When The Individual Transforms, Collectively We Transform.

As With Much Of The World's Problems, They Become Public--or Much More Of Interest--the Moment They Begin To Impact The West.

My Search Is Always To Find Ways To Chronicle, To Share And To Document Stories About People, Just Everyday People. Stories That Offer Transformation, That Lean Into Transcendence, But That Are Never Sentimental, That Never Look Away From The Darkest Things About Us.

Every Successful Artist Comes From A Family - Parents Or Siblings Or Both - Who, Although Equally Gifted, Chose Not To Pursue The Treacherous And Difficult Path Of The Artist.

I Think A Book That Is Over 400 Pages Should Be Split In Two. I Don't Know That There's Anything That Interesting That Can Go On For 700 Pages. I Think That Is A Little Bit Indulgent.

The Internet Is Really Our Meeting Place. We Have This Amazing Listserv. Every Time I Log Onto It I Feel A Sense Of Pride, Because If You Log On And Say, "oh I Was Just In San Diego And I Was In A Park And I Saw A Lion," The Flurry Of Replies On Average Is Just Like--wow! All These Existential Questions About What It Means To Be An African, And Never Having Seen A Lion At Home, But Having Seen A Lion Here. Everything You Say Turns Into This Real Philosophical Debate--it's Incredible In So Many Ways. And It's An Invigorating Place To Be.