Tomi Adeyemi Quotes

As I approach Inan, Baba’s shaking grows frantic. I can’t let him break my resolve. I don’t want them to win, Baba. But I can’t let you die.

When I read, I like to go somewhere else in my mind with stories that touch our real world without taking place in it.

I arch my eyebrow at Amari and think back to her mention of a training accident. I assumed the scar came from her brother’s sword, but was she holding a sword, too? Despite her escape from Lagos, I can’t imagine the princess locked in battle.

It avoids rather than hurts, it hurts rather than maims, it maims rather than kills—the staff does not destroy.” “I teach you to be warriors in the garden so you will never be gardeners in the war. I give you the strength to fight, but you all must learn the strength of restraint.” Mama turns to me, shoulders pinned back. “You must protect those who can’t defend themselves. That is the way of the staff.

No one ever asks, but you’re here. You’re here when so many people aren’t!” Roën grabs his head as if he could pull out his hair. “You survived the Raid. The guards. You survived the wrath of a king. You’re not a victim, Zélie. You’re a survivor! Stop running away!”

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

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

I thought things could be different. I wanted them to be different. But after what we just saw, we have no choice. We can't give people that kind of power.

Zélie’s memories don’t hold the villains Father always warned of. Only families he tore apart. Duty before self. His creed rings through my ears. My father. Her king. The harbinger of all this suffering.

Do you accept these people as your own?

Magic slithers inside me. Venomous, like a thousand spiders crawling over my skin. It wants more of me.”

I don’t know what disturbs me more: that I killed him, or that I could do it again. Strike, Amari. A thin whisper of father’s voice plays in my ears.

(What makes for a good fantasy novel?) I think the most magical fantasies will always be the ones with a world you want to live in forever…I think great worlds are important because they allow readers to play in that world with their imagination long after the book is done, but a great world isn’t complete without a great protagonist.

I begin to realise how far others will go to keep us down.

No!” I jerk up, wincing at the pain that shoots up my side. “This temple may be the oldest Orïsha has. It holds the stories of our past!”