Quote

There is a power in names. Olakunde told us of ashe-the power which runs through all things, subtle and flexible, which find its most potent expression in human utterance so that it is a terrible thing to call down imprecations on an enemy, or to wish for anything but good, for what is said out loud is forged into truth.

Matthew Tobin Anderson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Matthew Tobin Anderson
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: November 4
Novelist
Writer
Cambridge
Massachusetts
M.T. Anderson
Running
Loud
Good
Truth
Expression
Ashe
Things
Power
Terrible
Forged
Anything
Told
Utterance
Find
Enemy
Potent
Human
Names
Flexible
Humans
Call
Runs
Wish
Subtle
Thing

More quotes by Matthew Tobin Anderson

Image
Certain elements of teen life that, 10 years ago, were very important to me still, are becoming less so as I get older. I mean, Ive kinda gotten over, I guess Im saying, the fact that I had trouble getting a date for the prom.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
Teens are not like the weird, dumb dwarves you have around your house. They are actually you when you were younger.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
At long last, you may no longer distinguish what binds you from what is you.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
I eat broccoli. I think about the plot. I pace in circles for hours, counter-clockwise, listening to music. I try to think of one detail in the scene I'm about to write that I'm really excited about writing. Until I can come up with that one detail, I pace.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
Of course, I had my heart broken as a teen. I was desperately in love with myself. Then I found out that I was completely shallow. I haven't spoken to myself since.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
I don't know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
There are times when friendship feels like running down a hill together as fast as you can, jumping over things, spinning around, and you don't care where you're going, and you don't care where you've come from, because all that matters is speed, and the hands holding your hands.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
Image of a girl holding a blaster to a twin’s temple. “Remember, bi***. You can’t spell ‘danger’ without DNA.” Blam.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
I can't tell you how irritating it is to be an atheist in a haunted house.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
A lot of the drive to make narratives came from having to play by myself as a 5- or 6-year-old in the woods.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
You made her apologize for sickness. For her courage. You made her feel sorry for dying.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
Older teens tend to write to me and say, 'Thank you for not writing down to teenagers.'
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
I feel like it's hard to get into historical novels where you know what the story is far too well.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
The natural world is so adaptable...So adaptable you wonder what's natural.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
Its a very 18th-century thing to have a book broken into several volumes.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
it's like a squid in love with the sky.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
I write for teens partially to work out whatever it was that I needed to from my own teenage years.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
I feel like it's important every once in a while to estrange ourselves from the familiar to remind ourselves of the potentialities of people, how many different ways there are of being.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
I am messaging you to say that I love you, and that you're completely wrong about me thinking you're stupid. I always thought you could teach me things. I was always waiting. You're not like the others. You say things that no one expects you to. You think you're stupid. You want to be stupid. But you're someone people could learn from.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
Image
Whispering makes a narrow place narrower.
Matthew Tobin Anderson