Diana Abu-Jaber Quotes

• I heard friends and strangers saying, "You don't look Arab - what are you supposed to be?" It really is a tired old problem for children of immigrants and kids of mixed race, constantly trying to explain yourself. Eventually, you give up and say, "Okay, what do you think I am?" When you're in the midst of it, you come to understand that "race" is a loose social construct, a series of visual impressions, and that your identity can be whatever the hell crazy thing you want it to be, you just have to grow a sense of humor and cultivate selective deafness.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Children, Giving Up, Crazy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you silence yourself, if you try to be good, if you try to be polite, or toe a party line, you end up paying for that in the long run. You pay for it... with your homeland, or with your soul, or with your artistic vision.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Running, Party, Long

  "Diana Abu-Jaber: The Only Response to Silencing is to Keep Speaking". Interview with Andrea Shalal-Esa, www.aljadid.com. 2002.

  6 Copy quote

• For me, almost always, the answer was cake.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Cake, Answers

  Diana Abu-Jaber (2007). “The Language of Baklava”, p.186, Anchor

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• The obsession with food filled my childhood - that's what happens when your parents are from a place or time where people really might starve. In America, my Jordanian father spent decades cooking professionally and pursuing his dream of a restaurant, and it was one of the central ways that he explained himself to his American children. Even though he's a passionate talker, he has a hell of a time with listening. His cooking gave him a way of having a conversation - which was a really interesting thing for a writer to look at.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Dream, Children, Father

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• The question of identity has always been a murky issue in my own life and my writing bounces that right back. My father was adamant that my sisters and I were "Arab," and even though our house was in Syracuse, it was filled with the food, language, music, and overbearing relatives of Jordan. Unlike my gorgeous sisters, though, I inherited my mother's lighter complexion - it really is amazing what a difference a little bit of pigment can make on a person's experience!

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Father, Writing, House

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• My heritage will always be an element in my work but as I've written, traveled, and lived more, I've found that the questions and the search - for meaning, for "home," for tribe - consume me more than trying to crank out one identity or one homeland.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Home, Trying, Identity

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I honestly never intended food to occupy so much of my creative work. Food-writing often seems about to plummet straight into sentimentality. I think food can be dangerous to write about because if you don't manage to mediate it somehow, it can be the worst sort of greeting card.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Writing, Thinking, Creative

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• Dad says that everyone invented baklava.” It occurs to me now to wonder what that means. Aunt Aya rolls her eyes.
  “Your father? He is the worst of the worst. He thinks he cooks and eats Arabic food but these walnuts were not grown from Jordanian earth and this butter was not made from Jordanian lambs. He is eating the shadow of a memory. He cooks to remember but the more he eats, the more he forgets.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Memories, Dad, Father

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• Love and prayer are intimately related.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Prayer, Related

  Diana Abu-Jaber (2004). “Crescent: A Novel”, p.18, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Cultural identity is of course connected to this issue. When I was younger, it was inspiring to write about the people that raised me, especially their near-insane struggle to live between America and Middle East. But like many writers, I want to paint on as broad a canvas as possible.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Struggle, Writing, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• Every day I try to do some small thing connected to writing. Or I'll station myself at a café and try to hold myself captive with chocolate. I find that writers tend to be dismissive of small amounts of work or time, but they can actually add up. I've written several books in 15 minute increments.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Book, Writing, Chocolate

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The daily writing practice is something I used to hear batted around a lot in writing workshops - which is probably why I dropped out of all the writing workshops. I wish I could take credit for innovating a new approach to writing, but the truth is that I've managed to write books despite myself. I'm lazy and ungovernable and undisciplined, but I do have a lot of anxiety about never amounting to anything and ending up as a bag lady.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Book, Writing, Anxiety

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I'm constantly at war with myself to quit goofing around, and the internet hasn't helped that any. I've learned that I have to be sort of exploitive about seizing moments to write. Luckily, I still write most of my first drafts by hand, so I often work in bed when I can't sleep.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  War, Writing, Sleep

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Here is something you have to understand about stories: They point you in the right direction but they can't take you all the way there. Stories are crescent moons; they glimmer in the night sky, but they are most exquisite in their incomplete state. Because people crave the beauty of not-knowing, the excitement of suggestion, and the sweet tragedy of mystery.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Sweet, Moon, Night

  Diana Abu-Jaber (2004). “Crescent: A Novel”, p.384, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Consider the difference between the first and third person in poetry [...] It's like the difference between looking at a person and looking through their eyes.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Eye, Differences, Firsts

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• As a literary device, sugar and pastry carried so many nuances - the sweetness of the past, the danger of overeating and addiction, the political and environmental devastation of plantations - it was just what a book needed.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Book, Past, Addiction

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you only write for 15 minutes at a time, you can write a book and still have time for Legos.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Book, Writing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

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