Hanif Kureishi Quotes

Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety and hue, because it tells us there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel, when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying.

The noises Russia makes on the world stage are deeply misogynist, homophobic and racist.

I would like to get rid of the homophobes, sexists, and racists in our audience. I know they're out there and it really bothers me.

There's the basket of deplorables, who are bigots of various stripes, misogynists, anti-Muslim, racists, homophobes.

Gay people don't have a personality problem. They have a problem with small-minded motherfuckers who can't conquer a 1-inch high curb.

It is one of the worse things you can say about somebody, they are racist.

Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth. It has specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil Liberties Union. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder. Whom are we calling terrorists here?

If my mother were running for president and talked about a Muslim ban, I'd call her a bigot. If my mother claimed she didn't know who David Duke was when I knew she did, I'd say that's disqualifying. If my mother called an Indiana judge a Mexican, I would say that's a bigoted remark.

Bigotry is the sacred disease, and self-conceit tells lies.

In an interview, former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said he does not have a racist bone in his body. However, he admitted he has three sexist bones and his spine is homophobic.

What Donald Trump has done is to make it possible for people who had racist, sexist, and all kinds of prejudices and bigotry to put them right out there.

I have become the poster child for calling all the Trump people racists, when, in fact, I don't think they're all racists, but they tolerated racism. And that's a problem.

What would a racist call werewolves? Wargs? She kind of liked that one, but suspected that racist bastards didn't read Tolkien.

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.

The pursuit of otherness, the sense that we are somehow different than our brothers and sisters, no matter where we find them, allows for all the other great evils: racism, sexism, homophobia, violence against gay people and against women.

It is quite an achievement. People of liberal sympathies, stupefied by relativism, have become the apologists for a creedal wave that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist, and genocidal. To put it another way, they are up the arse of those that want them dead.

I was raised with this idea that we're supposed to be tolerant of other people's opinions, but then what happens if other people's opinions are racist and hateful and wrong?

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support -- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as 'racists'

What's the use of talking? You can see for yourself that this is a barbarous country; the people have no morals; and the boredom!

In some ways I feel sorry for racists and for religious fanatics, because they so much miss the point of being human, and deserve a sort of pity. But then I harden my heart, and decide to hate them all the more, because of the misery they inflict and because of the contemptible excuses they advance for doing so.

There's been cultural rot since there's been culture.

Few things have done more harm than the belief on the part of individuals or groups (or tribes or states or nations or churches) that he or she or they are in sole possession of the truth: especially about how to live, what to be and do - and that those who differ from them are not merely mistaken, but wicked or mad: and need restraining or suppressing.

We'll run this planet as we please, and if you don't like it, go back where we came from.

The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.

Acting politely in front of someone black and/or gay and then making horrible claims about their intelligence or worth as human beings after they leave the room is not kindness - it's hypocrisy.