35 Quotes by Chigozie Obioma

English, although the official language of Nigeria, was a formal language with which strangers and non-relatives addressed you. It had the potency of digging craters between you and your friends or relatives if one of you switched to using it. So, our parents hardly spoke English, except in moments like this, when the words were intended to pull the ground from beneath our feet.

Although Christianity had almost cleanly swept through Igbo land, crumbs and pieces of the African traditional religion had eluded the broom.

Even in his most extroverted moment, a man is concealed from others. For he cannot be fully known.

All we did for the rest of that evening was sing, the dying sun pitched in a corner of the sky as faint as a nipple on the chest of a teenage girl a distance away.

He cannot be fully seen by those who look at him, nor can he be fully touched by those who embrace him.

Guardian spirits of mankind, have we thought about the powers that passion creates in human beings? Have we considered why a man could run through a field of fire to get to a woman he loves? Have we thought about the impact of love on the body of lovers? Have we considered the symmetry of its power? Have we considered what poetry incites in their souls, and the impress of endearments on a softened heart?

I realize that it was during one of those trips to the river that our lives and our world changed. For it was here the time began to matter.

He wept for the dreams washed down the pit of life.

Ikenna was a fragile, delicate bird; he was a sparrow. Little things could unbridle his soul. Wistful thoughts often combed his melancholic spirit in search of craters to be filled with sorrow.