ByQuotes

Rumaan Alam Quotes

Powerful Rumaan Alam for Daily Growth

The culture looms much larger than you do as a parent, and one can hardly rely on the culture to impart the lesson that womanhood is valuable.

- Rumaan Alam

Parent, Lesson, Larger, Womanhood

I'm a square. I always wanted the standard-issue American dream: beautiful home, loving husband, couple of kids. I met another square, and we got married; a year later, we had a baby; three years later, had another.

- Rumaan Alam

Year, Another, Couple, Year Later

The person most qualified to tell the tale of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the man himself, as gifted an intellect as he is an athlete.

- Rumaan Alam

Athlete, Tell, Intellect, Qualified

When my husband and I first became parents, we joked that our chubby baby was destined to grow into an Alex P. Keaton Reaganite - the most unlikely, and therefore hilarious, course for the child of an interracial gay couple in gentrifying Brooklyn.

- Rumaan Alam

Husband, Couple, Became, Hilarious

One of the many American ideals that make no sense at all is that we're all a million rugged individualists marching in lockstep. We dress accordingly, at least the men. If it's always been thus, I yearn for the halcyon days of the man in the gray flannel suit because at least that guy had some flair.

- Rumaan Alam

Dress, Some, Been, Marching

I married the man I love when the state of California said I could. We made a family through adoption, as New York State said we could. From the outside, our family - two dads, two sons via adoption - seems like an experiment, but what family isn't an experiment?

- Rumaan Alam

Love, Through, Our, Dads

Because the designers at Baby Gap and Crew Cuts have determined it would be cute if kids dressed like their dads, seemingly every American male between 2 and 52 dresses identically.

- Rumaan Alam

Cute, American, Crew, Dads

Genre is a useful thing when organizing texts in a bookshop but immaterial to the particular exchange between writer and reader.

- Rumaan Alam

Reader, Particular, Texts, Useful Thing

Summer is meant to be for travel, for exploration, for leisure, but sometimes budgets and schedules dictate otherwise.

- Rumaan Alam

Meant, Otherwise, Budgets, Dictate

Is deciding what you like an instinct, a sense that arrives as swiftly as my autoimmune response to cat dander? Or is it the result of reasoned consideration, the way wine tasters swish pinot noir around in their mouths, spit it out, and reach for complex metaphors about chocolate and tobacco?

- Rumaan Alam

Reach, Instinct, About, Tobacco

When you are what we call a 'minority writer,' a writer of color, a writer of any kind of difference, there is some kind of presumption of autobiography in everything you produce. And I find that really maddening, and I resist that.

- Rumaan Alam

Color, Kind, Some, Maddening

Men's fashion's tendency toward uniformity promises little fun, but at least it offers this: If I wear sweatpants and sneakers, I can pass as the American it's safest to be.

- Rumaan Alam

Sneakers, Offers, Tendency, Uniformity

Years ago, I worked at a fashion magazine. I was the lowest man on the totem pole, one of the only men on that particular pole: a little brother with a dozen older sisters whose grace and glamour I so admired.

- Rumaan Alam

Little Brother, Dozen, Pole, Glamour

It comforts the adult conscience to remember that, amid history's grave injustices, there were still great lives.

- Rumaan Alam

Remember, Still, Lives, Injustices

Writer's block is a fiction.

- Rumaan Alam

Fiction, Writer, Block

I don't want the staggeringly wealthy Elton John and his family to represent the standard of gay fatherhood any more than straight people want the stunningly beautiful Angelina Jolie and her family to represent the standard of heterosexual parenthood. Stars are outliers; stars are exceptions.

- Rumaan Alam

Wealthy, Standard, Elton, None

It is true for my family and many others: Adoption has made us infinitely richer in the ways that matter most.

- Rumaan Alam

Made, Infinitely, Many, Richer

Wishing there were more children's books like 'The Snowy Day' is a bit like wishing there were more grownup books like 'Anna Karenina.' There are only so many masterpieces out there.

- Rumaan Alam

More, Wishing, Like, Grownup

I think that in the cultural imagination, motherhood has a primacy that fatherhood just doesn't; and that's not to say that there aren't many fathers who are active and engaged and for whom that is their life's passion. But somehow, in the imagination, there's something different about maternity.

- Rumaan Alam

I Think, Engaged, Fathers, Primacy

Contemporary families can be made in many ways. You might step up when relatives or friends are unable to meet their obligation to their children. You might marry someone who is already a parent. Or you might, as in my case, yearn to create a family and decide to adopt.

- Rumaan Alam

Parent, Marry, Yearn, Relatives

I grew up in the D.C. suburbs, and what I like about that place is that there's not a strong regional affect in the cultural imagination like there is in Dallas or San Francisco or New York City. You have a little more freedom as a novelist this way. The suburbs become a generic idea, and the place doesn't intrude into the narrative.

- Rumaan Alam

Dallas, Suburbs, Francisco, Intrude

When we had our first son, four different people gave us the same present: a copy of Ezra Jack Keats' 'The Snowy Day.' A new child often inspires duplicate gifts - we were given a dozen mostly useless baby blankets, just one more thing to spit up on - but this one was different.

- Rumaan Alam

Had, Mostly, Blankets, Jack

Checking your phone during dinner is no less rude than reading 'People' during dinner, which I once saw a woman do at Blue Ribbon Brooklyn as she dined with her husband/boyfriend/whatever.

- Rumaan Alam

Woman, Checking, Which, Ribbon

Lindsay Hatton's novel 'Monterey Bay' so beautifully evokes the landscape of the titular locale, you'll feel transported to Northern California even if you're reading it on the bus on your morning commute.

- Rumaan Alam

Reading, Bus, Feel, Lindsay

History is a story like any other, but black history is a story so devoid of logic that it frustrates the young reader. The young readers in my house, told of slavery and segregation, asked in disbelief, 'What? Why?' We - the parents of black children, the parents of all children - still need to tell that story.

- Rumaan Alam

Young, Other, Reader, Frustrate

There are probably some readers who don't want a great American writer to acknowledge that cleaning out the bottom drawer of the refrigerator has ever crossed their mind.

- Rumaan Alam

Mind, Cleaning, Some, Crossed

That's part of fashion's promise: that a girlfriend or boyfriend or a promotion are just one tie or sweater or pair of shoes away.

- Rumaan Alam

Away, Boyfriend, Part, Sweater

I do think that I have a sensitivity to the depictions of maybe all minorities in literature. And I think that the experience of people who look like me is so rarely captured in big, mainstream American fiction that you tend to sort of empathize with any character of color who pops up.

- Rumaan Alam

Color, Big, I Think, Sensitivity

When you are young, it's deeply annoying to be told that certain things are a condition of your youth. There's almost always some condescension in the proposition that your reality, your hopes, your frustrations, are just a condition of your age, that what feels unique to you is a very common thing after all.

- Rumaan Alam

Some, Very, Feels, Frustrations

My husband and I adopted our children through a private agency, Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children. As a nonprofit organization, it relies on client fees as well as donor support to do its work.

- Rumaan Alam

Through, Nonprofit, Private, Donor

If you're searching for quotes on a different topic, feel free to browse our Topics page or explore a diverse collection of quotes from various Authors to find inspiration.