Teju ColeThinkers

The Banality of evil is given to transmuting into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.

Malcolm X is a man who recognized that difference contains its own value, and that the struggle must be to advance that value.

A Mob is not, as is so often said, mindless. A mob is single-minded.

Prayer is no kind of promise, no device for getting what one wanted out of life; it is the mere practice of presence, that is all, a therapy of being present, of giving a name to the heart's desires, the fully formed ones, the as yet formless ones.

Racism is not something you see at first. it is atmospheric like misogyny. It has many moving parts, and has had enough centuries in which to evolve an impressive camouflage in America. You don’t see it at first. But understanding comes.

Sanity is the recognition that whatever our self-admitted eccentricities might be, we are not villains of our own stories.

Security is not secure — it is dangerous to live in a secure world.

Sentimentality is to be respected in America as one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.

Violence is not all hot violence. There is cold violence, too, which takes its time and finally gets its way.