Dinaw Mengestu Quotes

"There are strings," said Mr. Tappertit, flourishing his bread-and-cheese knife in the air, "in the human heart that had better not be wibrated..."

I live in the facial expressions of the other, as I feel him living in mine.

Very often I've known people who wouldn't say a word to each other, but they'd go to see movies together and experience life that way.

I tend to absorb a lot of what other people are feeling.

The dog can only become what's in your bubble. The dog is imitating the energy that is in your bubble. You are the source, the feast of energy. If you feel anxious, the dog becomes anxious with you. If you become nervous, the dog wakes up nervous with you.

I feel like I'm kind of a bit of a sponge in a way. Like, if people around me are going through things, I find it very hard not to be empathetic.

Most smiles are started by another smile.

Character and emotionality don't always have to be relegated to quieter, more simple constructs.

You can't be a human and a guy and not connect with Pippin... I often feel like Pippin. I come offstage sometimes like 'Oh my God, I've got to do this next time! I've gotta go there. I'm going to make this choice.'

You can look at 'Rumours' and say, 'Well, the album is bright, and it's clean, and it's sunny.' But everything underneath is so dark and murky. What was going on between us created a resonance that goes beyond the music itself.

Brains affect brains through far more means than words and listening.

Our built-in human system for mimicry explains why we humans can transfer our good and bad moods to each other - if we aren't careful!

And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy. It climbs the same way on damp walls. You are to blame for this cruel sport. They are fleeing from my dark lair. You fill everything, you fill everything. Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy, and they are more used to my sadness than you are. Now I want them to say what I want to say to you to make you hear as I want you to hear me.

Your day usually goes the way the corners of your mouth turn. The most powerful single thing you can do to influence others is to smile at them.

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.

We stand a professional distance apart, as if I can’t feel his pain screaming in my head. Mine amplifies his; they share a joint sound—that of glass breaking—until they swell to a crescendo that deafens.

Slumbering in every human being lies an infinity of possibilities, which one must not arouse in vain. For it is terrible when the whole man resonates with echoes and echoes, none becoming a real voice.

You talked to me, but you didn’t. I could see you having these two-sided conversations. The things you wanted to say to me. And the words that actually came out.

Today each of you is the object of the other’s reading, one reads in the other the unwritten story.

Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.

I don't know where the line is. I don't know how much of myself is in Walter. There's got to be a bit of him there.

For me, the subject is of secondary importance: I want to convey what is alive between me and the subject.

One of them, for example, which will probably haunt me more than any other is the problem of communication.

The human being is like a light bulb. If a human being is super stressed, depressed and filled with negativity, this is what that human being radiates out into the world.

She sits before me, sullen but hopeful, characterless, about to dissolve into tears. I squeeze her hand back, moved, no, touched by her ignorance of evil. She has one more test to pass. Do you own a briefcase?” I ask her, swallowing.