Uwem Akpan Quotes

#1. After the phone call from The New Yorker, I walked more than a mile to church to thank God. But then I told God I would talk to Him another time and darted home.

Uwem Akpan

#2. I'd say my religious life has shaped my worldview; my writing, I'd say too, is an extension of the pulpit ... it reaches folks who don't care for organized religion in a different way.

Uwem Akpan

#3. The real Ivan was rather more elusive, Mark gauged; it would not do to underestimate his subtlety, or mistake him for a simpleton.

Anonymous

#4. I believe that Jesus was both priest and poet. Imagine those powerful parables! My experience as a priest tells me it's not possible to reach the hearts of the congregants without a bit of poetry and storytelling.

Uwem Akpan

#5. The suicide bombings have increased. There's too many of them.

George W. Bush

#6. Maybe if we can find time to hug and cherish our families and the people around us, child suicide or college suicide wouldn't be rampant.

Uwem Akpan

#7. I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet.

Uwem Akpan

#8. I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your primer concern within other men

Ayn Rand

#9. I'm happy if my book makes you want to kiss your family ... if we can reconcile with each other no matter where we are on the globe.

Uwem Akpan

#10. Hollywood infected my brain and I really valued the wrong things in life, but I changed dramatically.

Marina And The Diamonds

#11. I don't believe in the art-for-art's-sake philosophy. With the raw material before me and the gifts within me, I did my best to celebrate the voices and intelligence and sweetness and dreams of the children in spite of their chaotic, outer worlds ...

Uwem Akpan

#12. I'm leaning towards making something for kids nine and under
because I have kids now. I can clean it up and make it rated G.

Snoop Dogg

#13. I only know that I know nothing

Socrates

#14. I believe artists should be able to step into other people's situations, contexts and cultures and work from there. If artists don't have that freedom, then, as someone has said, are we all writing our autobiographies?

Uwem Akpan

#15. If I'm going to buy a new guitar, I take it to a good 'hot' room, like a tiled bathroom, and listen to the wood. If tone comes off the neck, you can bet it's gonna sound beautiful through an amp

Richard Betts

#16. It's kind of astonishing that people trust strangers because of words they write on computer screens.

Howard Rheingold

#17. For me, as I've said many times, the story is not research. The story is how the characters relate with each other and with the environment ... I try to apply my imagination to what could have happened and how a little child could have viewed and processed the event ...

Uwem Akpan

#18. I didn't even realize it was a grand slam (number thirty-one) because I was mentally preparing myself for Andy Benes because he struck me out the first time.

Mark McGwire

#19. I always felt my writing could benefit from the attention of established writers. I knew my work could grow and be better.

Uwem Akpan

#20. Making art was really about the problem of the soul, of losing it. It was a technique for inhabiting the world. For not dissolving into it.

Rachel Kushner

#21. I have been very afraid of writing about other cultures and countries. I've been worried about getting the research wrong. I ask a lot of questions. I try to visit the area. If I'm not able to do that, I search out people from that country who live elsewhere and ask questions.

Uwem Akpan