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Top 25 Taiye Selasi Quotes (2025 Update)

Taiye Selasi Quote: “How can I come from a nation? How can a human being come from a concept?”

1. “How can I come from a nation? How can a human being come from a concept?”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I’m not sure where I’m from! I was born in London. My father’s from Ghana but lives in Saudi Arabia. My mother’s Nigerian but lives in Ghana. I grew up in Boston.”

2. “I’m not sure where I’m from! I was born in London. My father’s from Ghana but lives in Saudi Arabia. My mother’s Nigerian but lives in Ghana. I grew up in Boston.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “Being a twin, and being my sister’s twin, is such a defining part of my life that I wouldn’t know how to be who I am, including a writer, without that being somehow at the centre.”

3. “Being a twin, and being my sister’s twin, is such a defining part of my life that I wouldn’t know how to be who I am, including a writer, without that being somehow at the centre.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.”

4. “I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn’t that they are inaccurate, but that they’re incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn’t that it’s inaccurate, it’s that it’s incomplete.”

5. “I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn’t that they are inaccurate, but that they’re incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn’t that it’s inaccurate, it’s that it’s incomplete.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “As a young woman, I had been seeking experience, knowledge, truth, the stuff writers need in their work, but when the artist actually kicked in, I came to understand that in this romantic relationship I was not free to be myself, or to find myself, in order to begin the true work I needed to do.”

6. “As a young woman, I had been seeking experience, knowledge, truth, the stuff writers need in their work, but when the artist actually kicked in, I came to understand that in this romantic relationship I was not free to be myself, or to find myself, in order to begin the true work I needed to do.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “The thing that comes most frequently to me on yoga retreats is excruciating pain in my hips.”

7. “The thing that comes most frequently to me on yoga retreats is excruciating pain in my hips.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “The summer I finished my first novel ‘Ghana Must Go,’ I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lome to Cotonou to the deliciously named Ouagadougou.”

8. “The summer I finished my first novel ‘Ghana Must Go,’ I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lome to Cotonou to the deliciously named Ouagadougou.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “Sight is subjective. We learned that in class.”

9. “Sight is subjective. We learned that in class.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I live in Rome and five minutes from my flat is a church where you can walk in and see this beautiful Caravaggio. Just the way this man uses dark paint: dark to create dark to create dark, the layering of the darkness in his work. I just race home: I want to create!”

10. “I live in Rome and five minutes from my flat is a church where you can walk in and see this beautiful Caravaggio. Just the way this man uses dark paint: dark to create dark to create dark, the layering of the darkness in his work. I just race home: I want to create!”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.”

11. “As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.”

12. “I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.”

13. “The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide.”

14. “Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.”

15. “So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “When I’m working, I’m so narrowly focused on sound, language, rhythm, flow, that I rarely feel the emotion of the text. It’s only after – long after – I’ve finished a piece that I can experience in any way its emotional charge.”

16. “When I’m working, I’m so narrowly focused on sound, language, rhythm, flow, that I rarely feel the emotion of the text. It’s only after – long after – I’ve finished a piece that I can experience in any way its emotional charge.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I wouldn’t mind my book being called an African novel if it didn’t invite lazy readings.”

17. “I wouldn’t mind my book being called an African novel if it didn’t invite lazy readings.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “The big ideas always come in flashes. I don’t really craft stories that much. I genuinely don’t know where these people come from, and I’ve often wondered if writing is just a socially acceptable form of madness.”

18. “The big ideas always come in flashes. I don’t really craft stories that much. I genuinely don’t know where these people come from, and I’ve often wondered if writing is just a socially acceptable form of madness.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I wrote fiction during my entire childhood, from age 4 to 18, and started writing plays when I went to Yale and Oxford.”

19. “I wrote fiction during my entire childhood, from age 4 to 18, and started writing plays when I went to Yale and Oxford.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I was four when I announced my ambition to write, eight when I began publishing such claims.”

20. “I was four when I announced my ambition to write, eight when I began publishing such claims.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “I’ve written fiction for as long as I can remember; it’s always been my preferred form of play.”

21. “I’ve written fiction for as long as I can remember; it’s always been my preferred form of play.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “When writing screenplays, it’s a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn’t appear on the screen.”

22. “When writing screenplays, it’s a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn’t appear on the screen.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.”

23. “As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “Your baby is crying,” says the driver to Taiwo, the Ghanian way of saying your cell phone is ringing.”

24. “Your baby is crying,” says the driver to Taiwo, the Ghanian way of saying your cell phone is ringing.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “Looking back at a world that considered her irrelevant with a look that said she considered the world irrelevant, too.”

25. “Looking back at a world that considered her irrelevant with a look that said she considered the world irrelevant, too.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “The reduction of anguish to Hallmark-card hurt. The.”

26. “The reduction of anguish to Hallmark-card hurt. The.”

— Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi Quote: “Death must take place in the heart to be believed in. After love dies man believes in his death.”

27. “Death must take place in the heart to be believed in. After love dies man believes in his death.”

— Taiye Selasi

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