749 Quotes by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more.

We raise girls to see each other as competitors – not for jobs or accomplishments, which in my opinion can be a good thing – but for the attention of men.

Make dressing a question of taste and attractiveness instead of a question of morality.

He had discovered that grief did not dim with time; it was instead a volatile state of being.

She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size.

We teach females that in relationships, compromise is what a woman is more likely to do.

She heard his words like a melody and she felt herself breathing unevenly, gulping at the air. She would not cry, it was ridiculous to cry after so long, but her eyes were filling with tears and there was a boulder in her chest and a stinging in her throat. The tears felt itchy. She made no sound. He took her hand in his, both clasped on the table, and between them silence grew, an ancient silence that they both knew. She was inside this silence and she was safe.

She cries quietly, her shoulders heaving up and down, not the kind of loud sobbing that the women Chika knows do, the kind that screams Hold me and comfort me because I cannot deal with this alone. The woman’s crying is private, as though she is carrying out a necessary ritual that involves no one else.

Each time they ignore me, I feel invisible. I want to tell them that I am just as human as the man, just as worthy of acknowledgement. These are the little things, but sometimes it is the little things that sting the most.