Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

Nigerian writer (born 1977)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (; born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer, whose works include fiction, nonfiction, and lectures. She is widely recognised as a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature. Born into an Igbo family in Enugu, Nigeria, Adichie was educated at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, where she studied medicine for a year and half. She left Nigeria at the age of 19 to study in the United States at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and went on to study at: Eastern Connecticut State University, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University in the U.S. Many of Adichie's novels are set in Nsukka, where she grew up. She started writing during her university education. She first wrote Decisions (1997), a poetry collection, followed by a play, For Love of Biafra (1998). She achieved early success with her debut novel, Purple Hibiscus. Adichie has written many works and has cited Chinua Achebe and Buchi Emecheta as inspirations. Her writing style juxtaposes Western and African influences, with particular influence from Igbo culture. Most of her works explore the themes of religion, immigration, gender and culture. Adichie is a public speaker who has spoken at many commencement ceremonies, including at Williams College (2017), Harvard University (2018), and the American University (2019). She has also delivered Ted Talks, among them, "The Danger of a Single Story" (2009) and "We Should All Be Feminists" (2012). Part of the latter was featured by American singer Beyoncé in her song, as well as being featured on a T-shirt by Dior in 2016. Adichie's awards and honours include academic and literary prizes, fellowships, grants, honorary degrees, and other high recognition, such as a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008 and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Birth Name: Ngozi Grace Adichie

Alternative Names: Adichie • Ngozi Adichie • Chimamanda Adichie

From Wikidata (CC0)

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I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else.

was to remember like a brief blur my life as it once was, when I was only a daughter, not a mother.

Eugene has to stop doing God's job. God is big enough to do his own job. If God will judge our father for choosing to follow the way of our ancestors, then let God do the judging, not Eugene.

She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.

Is love this misguided need to have you beside me most of the time? Is love this safety I feel in our silences? Is it this belonging, this completeness?

For the rest of my life, I will live with my hands outstretched for things that are no longer there.

Only later did I see how, to survive, she wielded her niceness like a subtle sharp knife.

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

You hate men, you hate bras, you hate African culture, you think women should always be in charge, you don’t wear makeup, you don’t shave, you’re always angry, you don’t have a sense of humor, you don’t use deodorant.

Some days I was fine and some days I was under water, barely breathing

When it comes to dressing well, American culture is so self-fulfilled that it has not only disregarded this courtesy of self-presentation, but has turned that disregard into a virtue. "We are too superior/busy/cool/not-uptight to bother about how we look to other people, and so we can wear pajamas to school and underwear to the mall."

Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language.

This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.

Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living.

I meant to say I am sorry that Papa broke your figurines, but the words that came out were, ‘I’m sorry your figurines broke, Mama.’

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

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