749 Quotes by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don’t teach boys to care about being likable.

There’s something very lazy about the way you have loved him blindly for so long without ever criticizing him. You’ve never even accepted that the man is ugly,′ Kainene said. There was a small smile on her face and then she was laughing, and Olanna could not help but laugh too, because it was not what she had wanted to hear and because hearing it had made her feel better.

It seemed so natural, to talk to him about the odd things. She had never done that before. The trust, so sudden and yet so complete, and the intimacy, frightened her.

You read American fiction to learn about dysfunctional white folk doing things that are weird to normal white folks.

We watch films in class,” she told Obinze. “They talk about films here as if films are as important as books. So we watch films and then we write a response paper and almost everybody gets an A. Can you imagine? These Americans are not serious.

There was something unquestioning about her roommates’ lives, an assumption of certainty that fascinated her, so that they often said, “Let’s go get some,” about whatever it was they needed – more beer, pizza, buffalo wings, liquor – as though this getting was not an act that required money.

If the sun refuses to rise we will make it rise.

Teach her to stand up for what is hers. If another child takes her toy without her permission, ask her to take it back, because her consent is important. Tell her that if anything ever makes her uncomfortable, to speak up, to say it, to shout.

Tell Chizalum that women actually don’t need to be championed and revered; they just need to be treated as equal human beings.