Top 15 Helen Oyeyemi Quotes

”Jess shrank, her arms raised protectively over her head in anticipation of another blow. Her dad spoke tentatively from behind her: ‘Sarah, I was handling that ...’" (Page 326)

"Jesus doesn’t have lips as big as yours, and his skin is fair. How can you ever be as good as him on the outside when there’s nothing of him on your face?” (Page 246)

"Jess’s father is upset and confused, saying to Jess’s grandfather, “One minute you’re telling her to think on Jesus and the next you’re calling a witch doctor!” (Page 236).

"‘You weren’t, though! If that had been my father ’handling that’, she would’ve been flat on the floor with a few teeth missing!’” (Page 198)

"The truth shall set you free” (Chapter 11, Page 86)

"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)

"Maybe Jessamy has all these 'attacks' because she can't make up her mind whether she's black or white!" (Chapter 2, Page 13)

"Who is this woman who has a Nigerian maiden name in a British passport, who stands here wearing denim shorts and a strappy yellow top, with a white man and a half-and-half child?" (Chapter 2, Page 12)

"Wuraola sounded like another person. Not her at all. Should she answer to this name, and by doing so steal the identity of someone who belonged here?” (Part 1, Chapter 4, Page 28)

"In Nigeria, her mother had said, children were always getting themselves into mischief, and surely that was better than sitting inside reading and staring into space all day.” (Part 1, Chapter 3, Page 21)

"England, where people who stared at you would shift their eyes away with an embarrassed, smiling gesture if you stared back. England, where people didn’t see you, where it was almost rude to, wrong to.” (Page 16)

"He was looking at her, but in a distracted manner, as if she was something to look at while he waited for something else.”(Page 15)

"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)

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

"Words describing white people, white things, every single story spun out in some place where WE don’t exist! It has no value; in my eyes, it is to confuse.”