Monica Ali Quotes & Sayings

I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain. — Monica Ali

The air was hot and wet, as if it had absorbed the sweat of countless bodies. It dripped also with scandal. — Monica Ali

Suddenly, she was gripped by the idea that if she changed her clothes her entire life would change as well. — Monica Ali

Her need for love is as wide as that sky out there and as impossible for an unwinged mortal to fulfill. — Monica Ali

You know how if you're born in a certain situation you always expect your life to run on a steady trajectory? I've never really had a sense of that. I assume that life is going to go up and down. — Monica Ali

Chanu spoke loudly, he weighed his words like gold and threw them about like a fool. — Monica Ali

I don't know which is more nutty. All this stuff I do outside of work, or the stuff I do all week. — Monica Ali

While she wanted to look neither to her past nor her future, she lived exclusively in both. They had took different paths, but they had journeyed, so she realized, together. — Monica Ali

Sometimes I look back and I am shocked. Everyday of my life I have prepared for success, worked for it, waited for it, and you don't notice how the days pass until nearly a lifetime is finished. Then it hits you
the thing you have been waiting for has already gone by. And it was going in the other direction. It's like I've been waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus that was already full. p. 265 — Monica Ali

You can spread your soul over a paddy field, you can whisper to a mango tree, you can feel the earth between your toes and know that this is the place, the place where it begins and ends. But what can you tell to a pile of bricks? The bricks will not be moved (page 87). — Monica Ali

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose. — Monica Ali

We open a book, we turn a newspaper page, we allow the television and the radio to come into our homes. All the things we are told every day - are the true? — Monica Ali

The boys wore jeans, or tracksuits with big ticks on them as if their clothing had been marked by a teacher who valued, above all else, conformity. — Monica Ali

Sinking, sinking, drinking water. When everyone in the village was fasting a long month,when not a grain, not a drop of water passed between the parched lips of any able-bodied man, woman or child over the age of ten, when the sun was hotter than the cooking pot and dusk was just a febrile wish, the hypocrite went down to the pond to duck his head, to dive and sink, to drink and sink a little lower. p. 105 — Monica Ali

What I did not know - I was a young man - is that there are two kinds of love. The kind that starts off big and slowly wears away, that seems you can never use it up and then one day is finished. And the kind that you don't notice at first, but which adds a little bit to itself every day, like an oyster makes a pearl, grain by grain, a jewel from the sand. — Monica Ali

Nishi's sister, who was sixteen years old, had gone for a "holiday" in Sylhet and returned six months later with a husband and a swelling belly. Nishi, strong on forward-planning skills, was taking evasive action: she was going on a holiday of her own and she would return when she was twenty-five. At that ancient age the danger of marriage was over. — Monica Ali

It's a success story," said Chanu, exercising his shoulders. "But behind every story of immigration success there lies a deeper tragedy."
Kindly explain this tragedy."
I'm talking about the clash between Western values and our own. I'm talking about the struggle to assimilate and the need to preserve one's identity and heritage. I'm talking about children who don't know what their identity is. I'm talking about the feelings of alienation engendered by a society where racism is prevalent. I'm talking about the terrific struggle to preserve one's own sanity while striving to achieve the best for one's family. I'm talking
" p. 88 — Monica Ali

In the rainy season, back home, when the land had given way to water and the buffaloes grew webbed feet, when the hens took to the roofs, when marooned goats teetered on minuscule islands, when the women splashed across on the raised walkway to the cooking hut and found they could no longer kindle a dung-and-husk fire and looked to their reserves, when the rain rang louder than cow bells, — Monica Ali

Gabe, did you pray?'
'Sort of.'
'Me too. Do you believe?'
'No. Do you?'
'No.'
'I don't believe,' said Gabriel, 'But I have faith, if you know what I mean.'
'What in?'
'I don't know, life, carrying on, I suppose.'
'Yes. — Monica Ali

I don't want to get hung up on what 'people,' that nebulous mass, think about me. That's the way to unhappiness, I think. — Monica Ali

She had another English word. She carried it all the way down the corridor. — Monica Ali

I can't stay, said Chanu, and they clung to each other inside a sadness that went beyond words and tears, beyond that place, those causes and consequences, and became a part of their breath, their marrow, to travel with them from now to wherever they went. — Monica Ali

And the city itself was just a glow on the dark earth... — Monica Ali

The thought of writing was always pleasant, but the process was painful — Monica Ali

He still smelled of limes. It made saliva come into her mouth. It made her feel that before she had been sleepy, and now she was awake. — Monica Ali

Life made its pattern around and beneath and through her. — Monica Ali

A new car is not going to change your life. — Monica Ali

Character is always my driving force. And to tell a good story and to provide an entertaining read. — Monica Ali

Tevis being childless meant you felt a little sorry for her, and a bit jealous. Probably the same way she felt about you. — Monica Ali

Some writers are more natural public performers than others; personally I find it quite strange giving interviews. But everyone has parts of their job that they like more than others. You can't complain if you get to do what you love doing most of the time, can you? — Monica Ali

Spreading rumours is our national past time — Monica Ali

I don't look down on them, but what can you do? If a man has only ever driven a rickshaw and never in his life held a book in his hand, then what can you expect from him? — Monica Ali

People don't get involved with local charities or politics because they think it's hard to make a difference and the problem feels overwhelming. But I believe that if all I've time for this year is to write one letter to the local council, it's still worth doing. — Monica Ali

In the only way that pain can be truly remembered, through a new pain. — Monica Ali

I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel. — Monica Ali

I get really excited if I think I'm going to introduce somebody to a writer they haven't found before and I think they'll love. My favorite books to get as gifts are any that the giver is messianic about. — Monica Ali

If God wanted us to ask questions, he would have made us men. — Monica Ali

If you think you are powerless, then you are — Monica Ali

If the culture is so all pervasive that you can't think outside of it, how are you making genuine choices? — Monica Ali

Kids are naturally inventive and curious and creative, but most adults have had that beaten out of them. Writing is a form of play; you have to get rid of all those internal censors that we adults have, the things that say, 'Don't go there, that's not allowed.' — Monica Ali

Her words were as sharp as an eyeful of sand. She never raised her voice. It was the kind of voice that never needed to be raised. It cut words to a fine point and launched them decisively (page 88). — Monica Ali

A man cannot live without water. He cannot live without it, but he can bear the thought of no water. A man can live without sex. He can live without it, but he cannot bear the thought of no sex. — Monica Ali

People always want to identify a writer with their protagonist. — Monica Ali

Outside of interviews, I spend very little time thinking about myself. I spend time thinking about my writing and my children and other things that are pertinent. — Monica Ali

I guess there's a sort of cycle with writing books. There's all the researching and then the imagining and writing - which is the real job - and then there's always a period when the book comes out and you have to lift your head and venture out. — Monica Ali

I rarely get a moment to myself, but I love the way that my agenda is dictated by the children, not my work. — Monica Ali

He would not come again. This was good. No. This was bad. At least it was an end. — Monica Ali

An hour and forty-five minutes before Nazneen's life began-began as it would proceed for quite some time, that is to say uncertainly-her mother, Rupban, felt an iron fist squeeze her belly. — Monica Ali

And so they entwined their lives to drink from the pools of each other's sadness. From these special watering holes, each man drew strength. — Monica Ali

She touched his hand for the last time. "Oh, Karim, that we have already done. But always there was a problem between us. How can I explain? I wasn't me, and you weren't you. From the very beginning to the very end, we didn't see things. What we did
we made each other up." p. 382 — Monica Ali

They were both lost in cities that would not pause even to shrug — Monica Ali

I started writing 'Brick Lane' when my children were two years and five months old. We were on holiday in the north of England when I was overtaken by a compulsion to start writing. — Monica Ali

The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain. — Monica Ali

I wish I got a lie-in on Saturday mornings but I never do. — Monica Ali

I'm very eclectic in my music tastes - anything from Nina Simone to Beethoven to Talvin Singh. — Monica Ali