Tomi Adeyemi Quotes

Even before Mother interrupted my rally, the support of the Orïshans didn’t touch the boundless joy of these maji. I wonder what it would be like to be embraced like that. To actually have a place where you belong.

(Chapter Seventy-Six)*Even from afar, I see the blackened corpses that lie in the streets. Corpses that lie there because of me.

Yoruba is sacred to our people. It’s not just something you can learn.”

(What moves you most in a work of literature?) Acts of love. Be it familial, friendly or romantic. A beautifully described, tender act of love destroys me…I’ve always loved sweeping romances and magical fantasies. I’ve loved headstrong, determined female protagonists and epic battles. I still like to read the same things. I think the difference now is that I get to read all the things I like with characters who look like me. My childhood stories didn’t give me that. Even in the stories I wrote myself, I was only writing white characters and biracial characters. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that erasure was painful and damaging to my sense of self. So getting to create and read stories that fight that erasure and build on my sense of self is the only significant change in my reading tastes.

The ache that cuts through me is sharper than the blade that cut through my back. It’s like losing Mama all over again.

This war didn’t start when magic came back, Inan. You are only seeing the end of a battle countless have given their lives for. By winter’s dawn, we will have wiped the scourge of maji from this land. Even your wretched father couldn’t achieve that.”

I don’t want to be alone. Not when tonight could be my last night. Blind faith in the gods may have taken me this far, but if I’m going to get on that island tomorrow, I need more.

Zu’s tears make my own eyes prickle. Kwame’s face pinches with pain. I want to hate him for what he did to Tzain, but I can’t. I’m no better. If anything, I’m worse. If Inan hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve stabbed that masked divîner to death just to get answers

I can't be expected to carry the plight of my people forever.

Yemi meets my eyes with a hatred that impales me like a sword. Though her mouth never opens, her voice rings in my skull. “Safe ended a long time ago.”

My chest falls as Mother marches forward with her tîtáns that still stand. As she walks past the carnage in her path, I know she’s right. Our enemies are gaining ground. We need to eliminate every asset they have. But how long can both sides keep going like this before we destroy Orïsha?

In death, the other spirits of the arena passed on their pain. Their hate. In their memories I felt the sting of the guards’ whips. I tasted the salt of fallen tears on my tongue. But Minoli brought me to the dirt fields of Minna, where she and her sharp-nosed siblings worked the land for autumn’s corn crop. Though the sun shone brutal and the work was hard, each moment passed with a smile, with song.”

“Everyone else feels like being caught in the rain. You’re the whole tsunami.

It’s like seeing her for the first time: the human behind the maji. Fear embedded in the pain. Tragedy caused in Father’s name.”

Power is not the answer. It will only intensify the fight.