Quote

Give your daughters difficult names. Give your daughters names that command the full use of the tongue. My name makes you want to tell me the truth. My name doesn't allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.

Warsan Shire

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Warsan Shire
Age: 36
Born: 1988
Born: January 1
Poet
Writer
Republic of Kenya
Makes
Trust
Doesn
Name
Shire
Cannot
Full
Pronounce
Truth
Names
Daughters
Give
Anyone
Command
Right
Use
Tongue
Giving
Difficult
Allow
Tell
Daughter

More quotes by Warsan Shire

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With you, intimacy colors my voice. Even 'hello' sounds like 'come here'.
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My name is indigenous to my country, it is not easy to pronounce, it takes effort to say correctly and I am absolutely in love with the sound of it and its meaning. Also, it's not the kind of name you baby, slip into sweet talk mid sentence, late night phone conversation, whisper into the receiver kind of name, so, of that I am glad.
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To my daughter I will say, ‘when the men come, set yourself on fire.’
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Later that night, I held an atlas on my lap, ran my fingers across the whole world, and whispered, ‘where does it hurt?’ It answered, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
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Light attracts light. But sometimes your light attracts moths and your warmth attracts parasites. Protect your space and energy
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Your mouth is a lonely place but I keep coming back.
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I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes on my face they are still together.
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When I love, I love: wholly, thoroughly, completely, drowning in everything. Every glance can be a conversation, eyes just playing and saying what needs to be said. Silence is loud, and the air becomes heavy. I want you. I want all of you.
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You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.
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My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.
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I think in Somali, I cuss in Somali, when I'm afraid I reach for somali and this language is very rich, very filling. It's an unflinching language the crudest most terrible things sound perfectly normal in Somali.
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There is no intimacy like that between two women who have chosen to be sisters.
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I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel once. I'm bloated with language I can’t afford to forget.
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I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.
Warsan Shire
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Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women, kitchen of love, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes, the men, they come with keys, and sometimes the men, they come with hammers.
Warsan Shire
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Make love like you have no secrets like you've never been left never been hurt like the world don't owe you a single wretched thing.
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Apathy is the same as war, it all kills you, she says. Slow like cancer in the breast or fast like a machete in the neck.
Warsan Shire
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At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before.
Warsan Shire
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I belong deeply to myself.
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Perhaps, the problem is not the intensity of your love, but the quality of the people you are loving.
Warsan Shire