Helen Oyeyemi Quotes

With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but more often than not. With girls, Why her? came up so quickly.

For reasons of my own I take note of the way people act when they're around mirrors.

I've read that madness is present when everything you see and hear takes on an equal significance. A dead bird makes you cry, and so does a doorknob.

"It was Nigeria. That was the problem. Nigeria felt ugly." (Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 6)

"well, out of place. His face was wet with perspiration and flushed pink, and even the way that he stood marked him out as different." (Chapter 1, Page 9)

She thought I hadn't seen her, but she's no good at hiding her intentions. She can't help tiptoeing around with a finger to her lips at key moments.

"Once you let people know anything about what you think, that's it, you're dead. Then they'll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons”. (Page 82)

If you should find yourself in a place that is indifferent to you and there is someone there that your spirit stretches to, then that person is kin.

I'm not saying I'm amazing or anything, but I'm decent-looking. Why shouldn't a decent-looking girl expect to be kissed?

But then, maybe "I don't believe in you" is the cruelest way to kill a monster.

What you're doing is building a horrible kind of logic. People read what you write and they say, 'Yes, he is talking about things that really happen,' and they keep reading, and it makes sense to them. You're explaining things that can't be defended, and the explanations themselves are mad, just bizarre — but you offer them with such confidence. It was because she kept the chain on the door; it was because he needed to let off steam after a hard day's scraping and bowing at work; it was because she was irritating and stupid; it was because she lied to him, made a fool of him; it was because she had to die, she just had to, it makes dramatic sense; it was because 'nothing is more poetic than the death of a beautiful woman'; it was because of this, it was because of that. It's obscene to make such things reasonable.

The whole thing was so intense, so full of hurt that when I look back at it I squint. I want it forgotten.

As always, the soucouyant seemed more lonely than bad. Maybe that was her trick, her ability to make it so you couldn't decide if she was a monster.

She had had such a strong feeling that she needed to talk to someone who would tell her some secret that would make everything alright. She had been unable to think who it was.

It was like dancing with a mask that was attached to a stick—she dared not lower it, no matter how tiring it was to hold the mask up. She was the ugly girl at the ball.