Eliza Griswold Quotes

#1. That such people could accomodate conflicting worldly labels... was a talent of postcolonial life, evidence of adaptation by people who have had many different categories foisted on them by outsiders.

Eliza Griswold

#2. Seeing the Afghan women in their burqas, it's easy to say, "Well, they're not as fully aware as I am, so why do I have to worry so much about their plight?" But that's a misunderstanding. They are brutally aware of their station.

Eliza Griswold

#3. The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice.

Eliza Griswold

#4. Islam doesn't have a monopoly on violence in Africa. And violence plays a particularly critical role in places where statehood is weak at best, such as the Maghreb.

Eliza Griswold

#5. I can't imagine how Afghanistan's fall isn't going to be ten times faster than Iraq's.

Eliza Griswold

#6. I worked with two young women translators. One died and the other received a death threat from the Taliban.

Eliza Griswold

#7. Speculation is a fool's game, but I've seen many political projections that look like the Taliban could hold most of the country, and possibly Kabul, within perhaps a short time.

Eliza Griswold

#8. This year will take from me
the hardened person
who I longed to be.
I am healing by mistake.
Rome is also built on ruins.

Eliza Griswold

#9. Poetry is a popular genre in Afghanistan. If you turned on the radio, there would be a poetry program that would be as popular as The Real Housewives.

Eliza Griswold

#10. The future of Afghanistan is incredibly dark, and decisions are happening incredibly quickly.

Eliza Griswold

#11. Poetry allows me to write about what I don't know, whereas journalism demands a higher level of certainty to be worthy of being written.

Eliza Griswold

#12. In most of the world, poetry has such a different reputation than it does in Western culture.

Eliza Griswold

#13. Poetry isn't as relevant in the Western world as it is in Afghanistan. And not many people make time for something that doesn't feel relevant.

Eliza Griswold

#14. It's important to understand that violent Islam is only one face of violent religion.

Eliza Griswold

#15. The truth is, terrorism flourishes in places of injustice rather than in places of poverty.

Eliza Griswold

#16. You can't be wrong in journalism. Take a wrong turn in journalism, and you are writing fiction. You can take a wrong turn in poetry, and something wonderful can happen.

Eliza Griswold

#17. News isn't designed to talk about daily life in its nuances, but poetry is.

Eliza Griswold

#18. Reverend Abdu bore his several identities, and all their contradictions, in a single skin. It wasn't relativism: his convictions went deeper than that... Such labels seemed ultimately unimportant to him because he did not belong to himself, or to this world, at all; he belonged to God.

Eliza Griswold

#19. Religious strife where Christians and Muslims meet is real, and grim, but the long history of everyday encounter, of believers of different kinds shouldering all things together, even as they follow different faiths, is no less real.

Eliza Griswold