Someone Like Us Quotes

“everything was subject to doubt and interpretation.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“There was a hungry prisoner behind a fence who needed me, and if I made it back, I promised this time I would do a better job taking care of him.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“waved goodbye to him as I walked back into the fluorescent-lit hallways that led upstairs. The guard outside the records office was gone, and as I reached the stairs I began to suspect that if I looked back I would find that the entire corridor was empty. That feeling followed me up the stairs, and by the time I reached the top I began to wonder if perhaps the records room and clerk might have vanished since I left, so that if I were to run back downstairs, I would find not only a different hallway but a different room and man standing behind the counter.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“you weren’t here, there would be no hotel to drink in. What would happen to all the people who work there? Or at the restaurants and bars next to it? What would happen to all the soldiers from Bangladesh and Nepal and the airport the UN is building so their workers can fly direct from here to Addis or Nairobi for vacation every six weeks? What would happen to this military base the government is building to stop people like me? You have to understand, I love my country too much not to make these little troubles.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“former engineer turned militia leader whom I’d described as a mix of Che Guevara meets Somali pirates. I spent the bulk of my three weeks in eastern Congo at my hotel bar—the preferred meeting ground for aid workers and the militia leaders who were supposedly the source of all the troubles. The drinks at the hotel were as expensive as those at any bar in New York or London; the bartender told me that on most nights, if he wasn’t careful with his pours, he could empty nearly every bottle and would have nothing for the end of the week. “It’s the cocaine,” he said, which was cheap and all but worthless in the domestic market. Before leaving, I managed to spend several nights”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“but it was only after our son was born that we understood the possible scale of things to worry about lying in wait.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“The only problems we have, Mamush, are loss of faith and culture and maybe having too many American friends.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“If your brain was a boat, it is the part underwater that you can't see. You don't think about it. You live on top. You think everything is fine, but maybe there are cracks and leaks underneath you. That's why you say all the time in English: I'm so busy. I'm drowning. You think it's because you have too much to do. Or you're too busy. Or too much stress. But no. Your brain is leaking. You are full of holes. But you think if you just wave your arms fast enough everything will be okay.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“Are you writing?" By which he meant, are you taking care of yourself, have you learned to live with whatever it was that was destroying you. I told him yes, I was, without ever asking if the same was still true for him.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“Sometimes I look at you and think that things go right through you. You're like a donut. There's a hole in the middle, where something solid should be.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“I didn't live in the world of happy and unhappy childhoods, happy and unhappy families. We worked. We did what we had to do and never considered other options.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“Sometimes I look at you and think that things go right through you. You're like a donut. There's a hole in the middle, where something solid should be”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us