Binyavanga Wainaina Quotes

Cloud travel is well and good when you have mastered the landings. I never have. I must live, not dream about living.

~ Binyavanga Wainaina

When art as an expression starts to appear, without prompting, all over the suburbs and villages of this country, what we are saying is: we are confident enough to create our own living, our own entertainment, our own aesthetic. Such an aesthetic will not be donated to us from the corridors of a university; or from the Ministry of Culture, or by the French Cultural Centre. It will come from the individual creations of a thousand creative people

~ Binyavanga Wainaina

I have learned that I, we, are a dollar-a-day people (which is terrible, they say, because a cow in Japan is worth $9 a day). This means that a Japanese cow would be a middle class Kenyan... a $9-a-day cow from Japan could very well head a humanitarian NGO in Kenya. Massages are very cheap in Nairobi, so the cow would be comfortable.

~ Binyavanga Wainaina

I want to be fighting for a society accountable towards its citizens.

~ Binyavanga Wainaina