Alexandra Fuller quotes

You learn not to mourn every little thing out here, or you'd never, ever stop grieving. (Alexandra Fuller)

How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to.

Alexandra Fuller

One of the things about being raised British in Africa is that you get this double whammy of toughness. The continent in place itself made you quite tough. And then you've got this British mother whose entire being rejects 'coddling' in case it makes you too soft. So there's absolutely nothing standing between you and a fairly rough experience.

Alexandra Fuller

What is important is the story. Because when we are all dust and teeth and kicked-up bits of skin - when we're dancing with our own skeletons - our words might be all that's left of us.

Alexandra Fuller

I always knew mum loved me - tough, look-after-yourself love, as if she knew she wouldn't always be there.

Alexandra Fuller

Until I read Anne Frank's diary, I had found books a literal escape from what could be the harsh reality around me. After I read the diary, I had a fresh way of viewing the both literature and the world. From then on, I found I was impatient with books that were not honest or that were trivial and frivolous.

Alexandra Fuller

I listen mostly to classical music.

Alexandra Fuller

I love my mother so much, because I see the whole of her.

Alexandra Fuller

There's a point at which writing a book, or a long article, begins to feel like mental labor, and it's too painful to connect in the world in any real way mid-process. The only way to survive is to write until it is all said and done.

Alexandra Fuller

I am becoming increasingly difficult to please as a reader, but I adore being surprised by a really wonderful book, written by someone I've never heard of before.

Alexandra Fuller

In ways I don't entirely have the words for an experience, thought or a lesson isn't real for me until I've written down. (Alexandra Fuller)

In general, I almost always watch foreign films.

Alexandra Fuller

The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful, often urgent, and essentially life-affirming, but they are all performances of courage and honesty.

Alexandra Fuller