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Top 80 Teju Cole Quotes (2025 Update)

Teju Cole Quote: “The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.”

1. “The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.”

Teju Cole Quote: “The site was a palimpsest, as was all the city, written, erased, rewritten.”

2. “The site was a palimpsest, as was all the city, written, erased, rewritten.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Things don’t go away just because you choose to forget them.”

3. “Things don’t go away just because you choose to forget them.”

Teju Cole Quote: “For purposes of marketing, writers are designated as poets, novelists, or something else. But writing is about matchmaking, an attempt to marry sensations with apt words.”

4. “For purposes of marketing, writers are designated as poets, novelists, or something else. But writing is about matchmaking, an attempt to marry sensations with apt words.”

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

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

Teju Cole Quote: “The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.”

6. “The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Life’s too short for anxious score-keeping.”

7. “Life’s too short for anxious score-keeping.”

Teju Cole Quote: “I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.”

8. “I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.”

Teju Cole Quote: “I’m not hopeful about America, and I’m not hopeful about the world, no. Life goes on and, for those of us who are lucky, there’s a great deal to enjoy in it. But will things get better for most people? I don’t know. I don’t see the evidence.”

9. “I’m not hopeful about America, and I’m not hopeful about the world, no. Life goes on and, for those of us who are lucky, there’s a great deal to enjoy in it. But will things get better for most people? I don’t know. I don’t see the evidence.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Love perhaps includes the promise that when the mob comes for you I’ll go against the mob.”

10. “Love perhaps includes the promise that when the mob comes for you I’ll go against the mob.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Not in this specific form. But all great cities are inhabited by ghosts. A book of this kind could probably be written about Jakarta, Manila, or London by anyone who had a feeling for the invisible truths of those places.”

11. “Not in this specific form. But all great cities are inhabited by ghosts. A book of this kind could probably be written about Jakarta, Manila, or London by anyone who had a feeling for the invisible truths of those places.”

Teju Cole Quote: “At the emergence of the modern novel with Rabelais and Cervantes, all kinds of things were possible in a long-form prose work. Within a couple of hundred years, most of those possibilities were abandoned in favor of a text that efficiently transmitted sentiments.”

12. “At the emergence of the modern novel with Rabelais and Cervantes, all kinds of things were possible in a long-form prose work. Within a couple of hundred years, most of those possibilities were abandoned in favor of a text that efficiently transmitted sentiments.”

Teju Cole Quote: “There’s a reticence necessary when you consider the suffering of others. Into the space created by that reticence, you bring in those things that best help us confront ambiguity: music, painting, film, and so on.”

13. “There’s a reticence necessary when you consider the suffering of others. Into the space created by that reticence, you bring in those things that best help us confront ambiguity: music, painting, film, and so on.”

Teju Cole Quote: “I suddenly feel a vague pity for all those writers who have to ply their trade from sleepy American suburbs, writing divorce scenes symbolized by the very slow washing of dishes.”

14. “I suddenly feel a vague pity for all those writers who have to ply their trade from sleepy American suburbs, writing divorce scenes symbolized by the very slow washing of dishes.”

Teju Cole Quote: “If you see a theme that you might want to take a photo of, you sort of stand there for an hour waiting for it to resolve, waiting for the geometry of a theme to be exactly what you want them to be. That was my process to get photos.”

15. “If you see a theme that you might want to take a photo of, you sort of stand there for an hour waiting for it to resolve, waiting for the geometry of a theme to be exactly what you want them to be. That was my process to get photos.”

Teju Cole Quote: “American racism has many moving parts, and has had enough centuries in which to evolve an impressive camouflage. It can hoard its malice in great stillness for a long time, all the while pretending to look the other way. Like misogyny, it is atmospheric. You don’t see it at first. But understanding comes.”

16. “American racism has many moving parts, and has had enough centuries in which to evolve an impressive camouflage. It can hoard its malice in great stillness for a long time, all the while pretending to look the other way. Like misogyny, it is atmospheric. You don’t see it at first. But understanding comes.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Africa was always waiting, a substrate for the white man’s will, a backdrop for his activities... I was primed to see a white man, a nobody in his own country, who thought, as usual, that the salvation of Africa was up to him.”

17. “Africa was always waiting, a substrate for the white man’s will, a backdrop for his activities... I was primed to see a white man, a nobody in his own country, who thought, as usual, that the salvation of Africa was up to him.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Mohamed Choukri – For Bread Alone – translated by Paul Bowles.”

18. “Mohamed Choukri – For Bread Alone – translated by Paul Bowles.”

Teju Cole Quote: “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.”

19. “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.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Not all coincidence has to be loaded with meaning. Sometimes, things simply recur because that’s how it is in life, that’s how the mood gets in. It’s good to subtly overdo it too, as Nabokov does, as Sebald does. It’s a good way to intensify that region of localized weather that we call a novel.”

20. “Not all coincidence has to be loaded with meaning. Sometimes, things simply recur because that’s how it is in life, that’s how the mood gets in. It’s good to subtly overdo it too, as Nabokov does, as Sebald does. It’s a good way to intensify that region of localized weather that we call a novel.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Then he said, Let me tell you a story from our tradition, a story about King Solomon. King Solomon gave a teaching once about the snake and the bee. The snake, King Solomon said, defends itself by killing. But the bee defends itself by dying. You know how a bee dies after a sting? Like that. It dies to defend. So, each creature has a method that is suitable to its strength.”

21. “Then he said, Let me tell you a story from our tradition, a story about King Solomon. King Solomon gave a teaching once about the snake and the bee. The snake, King Solomon said, defends itself by killing. But the bee defends itself by dying. You know how a bee dies after a sting? Like that. It dies to defend. So, each creature has a method that is suitable to its strength.”

Teju Cole Quote: “The shape the words end up taking are themselves the meaning of the words, they are retrospectively what we meant to say. There’s no way of knowing this until you register it in visible form. But the other side of this is that you do have some idea of where you are going.”

22. “The shape the words end up taking are themselves the meaning of the words, they are retrospectively what we meant to say. There’s no way of knowing this until you register it in visible form. But the other side of this is that you do have some idea of where you are going.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Still, there’s that faint glimmer of hope we feel when we sense, in other people, the same kind of attentiveness to life that we take comfort in. Why else would anyone watch Haneke films or read Sebald? The material is grim, but it’s redeemed by the quality of the attention.”

23. “Still, there’s that faint glimmer of hope we feel when we sense, in other people, the same kind of attentiveness to life that we take comfort in. Why else would anyone watch Haneke films or read Sebald? The material is grim, but it’s redeemed by the quality of the attention.”

Teju Cole Quote: “You don’t bring in a gay character as a way of commenting on gay issues. You have one there because he’s real, and that’s his life, no less so than your life is yours.”

24. “You don’t bring in a gay character as a way of commenting on gay issues. You have one there because he’s real, and that’s his life, no less so than your life is yours.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Being Nigerian is a strong part of my identity. Being American is a strong part of my identity. And there are important parts of who I am that really have nothing to do with my national connection.”

25. “Being Nigerian is a strong part of my identity. Being American is a strong part of my identity. And there are important parts of who I am that really have nothing to do with my national connection.”

Teju Cole Quote: “I just realized that we’re facing here is an empathy gap. And this was just another way to generate conversation about something that nobody wanted to look at.”

26. “I just realized that we’re facing here is an empathy gap. And this was just another way to generate conversation about something that nobody wanted to look at.”

Teju Cole Quote: “I couldn’t remember what life was like before I started walking.”

27. “I couldn’t remember what life was like before I started walking.”

Teju Cole Quote: “The music you travel with helps you to create your own internal weather.”

28. “The music you travel with helps you to create your own internal weather.”

Teju Cole Quote: “We experience life as a continuity, and only after it falls away, after it becomes the past, do we see its discontinuities. The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float.”

29. “We experience life as a continuity, and only after it falls away, after it becomes the past, do we see its discontinuities. The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Always say no pun intended to draw attention to the intended pun.”

30. “Always say no pun intended to draw attention to the intended pun.”

Teju Cole Quote: “If you’re too loyal to your own suffering, you forget that others suffer, too.”

31. “If you’re too loyal to your own suffering, you forget that others suffer, too.”

Teju Cole Quote: “From where I stood, the Statue of Liberty was a flourescent green fleck against the sky, and beyond her sat Ellis Island, the focus of so many myths; but it had been built too late for those early Africans – who weren’t immigrants in any case – and it had been closed too soon to mean anything to the later Africans like Kenneth, or the cabdriver, or me.”

32. “From where I stood, the Statue of Liberty was a flourescent green fleck against the sky, and beyond her sat Ellis Island, the focus of so many myths; but it had been built too late for those early Africans – who weren’t immigrants in any case – and it had been closed too soon to mean anything to the later Africans like Kenneth, or the cabdriver, or me.”

Teju Cole Quote: “One of the difficulties of photography is that it is much better at being explicit than at being reticent.”

33. “One of the difficulties of photography is that it is much better at being explicit than at being reticent.”

Teju Cole Quote: “A MOB is not, as is so often said, mindless. A MOB is single-minded.”

34. “A MOB is not, as is so often said, mindless. A MOB is single-minded.”

Teju Cole Quote: “I adore imaginary monsters, but I am terrified of real ones.”

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

Teju Cole Quote: “Malcolm X recognized that difference contains its own value, and that the struggle must be to advance that value. Martin Luther King is admired by everyone, he wants everyone to join together, but this idea that you should let them hit you on the other side of your face, this makes no sense to me.”

36. “Malcolm X recognized that difference contains its own value, and that the struggle must be to advance that value. Martin Luther King is admired by everyone, he wants everyone to join together, but this idea that you should let them hit you on the other side of your face, this makes no sense to me.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Each person must, on some level, take himself as the calibration point for normalcy, must assume that the room of his own mind is not, cannot be, entirely opaque to him.”

37. “Each person must, on some level, take himself as the calibration point for normalcy, must assume that the room of his own mind is not, cannot be, entirely opaque to him.”

Teju Cole Quote: “There is a long marriage between comedy and human suffering, and mental illness, in particular, is easily played for laughs. But I had dozens of cases that would have been ill-suited for the purpose, and sometimes it is hard to shake the feeling that, all jokes aside, there really is an epidemic of sorrow sweeping our world, the full brunt of which is being borne, for now, by only a luckless few.”

38. “There is a long marriage between comedy and human suffering, and mental illness, in particular, is easily played for laughs. But I had dozens of cases that would have been ill-suited for the purpose, and sometimes it is hard to shake the feeling that, all jokes aside, there really is an epidemic of sorrow sweeping our world, the full brunt of which is being borne, for now, by only a luckless few.”

Teju Cole Quote: “Each time I caught sight of geese swooping in formation across the sky, I wondered how our life below might look from their perspective, and imagined that, were they ever to indulge in such speculation, the high-rises might seem to them like firs massed in a grove.”

39. “Each time I caught sight of geese swooping in formation across the sky, I wondered how our life below might look from their perspective, and imagined that, were they ever to indulge in such speculation, the high-rises might seem to them like firs massed in a grove.”

Teju Cole Quote: “There are almost no Native Americans in New York City, and very few in all of the Northeast. It isn’t right that people are not terrified by this because this is a terrifying thing that happened to a vast population.”

40. “There are almost no Native Americans in New York City, and very few in all of the Northeast. It isn’t right that people are not terrified by this because this is a terrifying thing that happened to a vast population.”

Teju Cole Quote: “The systems that could lift the majority out of poverty are undercut at every turn. Precisely because everyone takes a shortcut, nothing works and, for this reason, the only way to get anything done is to take another shortcut.”

41. “The systems that could lift the majority out of poverty are undercut at every turn. Precisely because everyone takes a shortcut, nothing works and, for this reason, the only way to get anything done is to take another shortcut.”

Teju Cole Quote: “How petty seemed to me the human condition, that we were subject to this constant struggle to modulate the internal environment, this endless being tossed around like a cloud.”

42. “How petty seemed to me the human condition, that we were subject to this constant struggle to modulate the internal environment, this endless being tossed around like a cloud.”

Teju Cole Quote: “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.”

43. “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.”

Teju Cole Quote: “The energies of Lagos life- creative, malevolent, ambiguous- converge at the bus stops.”

44. “The energies of Lagos life- creative, malevolent, ambiguous- converge at the bus stops.”

Teju Cole Quote: “We are the first humans who are completely unprepared for disaster. It is dangerous to live in a secure world.”

45. “We are the first humans who are completely unprepared for disaster. It is dangerous to live in a secure world.”

Teju Cole Quote: “In the shadow of skyscrapers, half-nude men in dugouts cast nets into the lagoon. The work of arms and shoulders. I think of Auden’s line: Poetry makes nothing happen.”

46. “In the shadow of skyscrapers, half-nude men in dugouts cast nets into the lagoon. The work of arms and shoulders. I think of Auden’s line: Poetry makes nothing happen.”

Teju Cole Quote: “It wasn’t a deception: all lovers live on partial knowledge.”

47. “It wasn’t a deception: all lovers live on partial knowledge.”

Teju Cole Quote: “It is dangerous to live in a secure world.”

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

Teju Cole Quote: “But a book suggests conversation: one person is speaking to another, and audible sound is, or should be, natural to that exchange. So I read aloud with myself as the audience, and gave voice to another’s words.”

49. “But a book suggests conversation: one person is speaking to another, and audible sound is, or should be, natural to that exchange. So I read aloud with myself as the audience, and gave voice to another’s words.”

Teju Cole Quote: “I schooled in the Boston area.”

50. “I schooled in the Boston area.”

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