Ayobami Adebayo Quotes

If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But when it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn't mean it's no longer love.

Didn't think it was possible for the world to change so suddenly. I was aware of other people moving up and down the corridor: I heard heels clicking, people speaking, felt some bodies push past mine. But I felt so alone, as though within the space of time it had taken Yejide to say, "They have taken Olamide to the mortuary" I had been transported to a planet with no human life.

So love is like a test, but in what sense? To what end? Who was carrying out the test? But I think I did believe that love had immense power to unearth all that was good in us, refine us and reveal to us the better versions of ourselves.

The reasons why we do the things we do will not always be the ones others will remember. Sometimes I think we have children because we want to leave behind someone who can explain who we were to the world.

there is no god like a mother

OK, we'll tell her you dug the grave." It's the truth - stretch, but still true. Besides, what would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves that we present as the only ones that exist?

I loved Yejide from the very first moment. No doubt about that. But there are things even love can't do. Before I got married, I believed love could do anything. I learned soon enough that it couldn't bear the weight of four years without children. If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But even when it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn't mean it's no longer love.

Before you call the snail a weakling, tie your house to your back and carry it around for a week

It would take a while for me to realise that each of my children had given me as much as they took. My memories of them, bittersweet and constant, were as powerful as a physical presence. And because of that, as a bus bore me into the heart of a city I did not know, while my last child was dying in Lagos and the country was unraveling, I was not afraid because I was not alone.

A mother must be vigilant. She must be able and willing to wake up ten times during the night to feed her baby. After her intermittent vigil, she must see everything clearly the next morning so that she can notice any changes in her baby. A mother is not permitted to have blurry vision. She must notice if her baby’s wail is too loud or too low. She must know if the child’s temperature has risen or fallen. A mother must not miss any signs.

There is a strong view in Nigeria, as in many other cultures, that a marriage is not complete without children. I don’t agree; I’m wary of the idea that people have to have some particular functionality in order to be full members of society. I think it’s a very dangerous idea. Humans are humans and they are worthy of respect…

I wanted to look at the subtle ways that Nigerians interacted with the Nigerian state. One of the ways we survive darkness—and there’s a lot of darkness in this book—is to find reasons to laugh. Laughter in those kinds of situations becomes essential. It’s not a luxury. It’s not just something you do because you feel like laughing. It’s been one of the ways I’ve coped myself. I wanted to bring that to this book because it would be miserable if there was no humor…

I wanted to write about extended family systems. You have people you can fall back on, and it’s good. But what if you don’t fit into what is expected of you? If you’re a man, there’s support. If you’re a woman, like Yejide, there’s the expectation that you marry into a family and after a couple of years you have children, and you have a measure of power. I wanted to look at what would happen if you could choose to be what you’re supposed to be, and how the community, in trying to help you become what you think you should be, turns on you.

The road stretches before us, shrouded in a darkness transitioning into dawn as it leads me back to you.

There is nothing stopping a beautiful girl from facing her books