Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

A geyser of anxiety had erupted deep inside me and I was spurting fear.

In my head, there was a queue of emotions I could not name, wanting to be tried out one after the other.

He said, “I thought you let me because you had protection.” I said, “What are you talking about? You know I stopped taking the pill because it made me fat, and I assumed you knew what it meant, what it could mean.” He said, “There was miscommunication.

Respect: a starched deference, a string of ashen rituals. It was my mother who sat beside my father at weddings and ceremonies; it was her photo that appeared above the label of “wife” in the booklet his club published in his honor. Respect was her reward for acquiescing.

He grew up with his dreams already dreamt for him

We mostly spoke English; Igbo was for mimicking relatives and for saying painful things.

Zikky, it won’t be easy, but it won’t be as hard as you think. How you imagine something will be is always worse than how it actually ends up being,

We scrub and scrape our armpits and upper lip and legs because we hate to have hair there. Then we pamper and treat the hair on our heads because we love hair there. But it’s all hair. It’s the wanting that makes the difference.

I knew how I was supposed to feel, but I did not know how I felt. It was not transcendental. There was a festering red pain between my legs. Somewhere in my consciousness, a mild triumph hovered, because it was over, finally it was over, and I had pushed out the baby. So animalistic, so violent—the push and pressure, the blood, the doctor urging me, the cranking and stretching of flesh and organ and bone.

Ours was an ancient story, the woman wants the baby and the man doesn’t want the baby and a middle ground does not exist.

I began to cry. Tears were so cheap now. How do some memories insist on themselves?

I believed then that love had to feel like hunger to be true.

I didn’t question whether it was real, because I knew it was. I questioned where it had gone. How could emotions just change? Where did it go, the thing that used to be?

Each morning, I coated concealer on the dark bags under my eyes. Most days, I caressed a bottle of Advil, longing for the translucent green pills, but knowing that I would never take them.

I made myself boneless and amenable. I spent weekends willing the landline next to my bed to ring. Often it didn’t. Then he would call, before midnight, to ask if I was still up, so he could visit and leave before dawn.