298 Quotes by Helen Oyeyemi

With growing disbelief, Jess yet again felt herself slipping into the gap - that gap of perception between what is really happening to a person and what others think is happening.

More than friends, eh? More than friends... You know, my mother once told me that half of the hatred that springs up between people is rooted in this mistaken belief that there's any human relationship more sacred than friendship.

I think it's swell that there are people you don't have to worry about when you don't see them for a long time, you don't have to wonder what they do, how they're getting along with themselves. You just know that they're all right, and probably doing something they like.

The cards spoke to a suspicion that many whose work is play can never be free of: that you can only flaunt your triviality for so long before punishment is due.

It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be one.

I remember Mum repeatedly telling us we had good hearts and good brains. When she said that we'd say 'thanks' and it might have sounded as if we were thanking her for seeing us that way but actually we were thanking her for giving us whatever goodness was in us.

At that time I had to keep meeting people and meeting people in case one of them was someone I could marry.

I was always weak in the head—that must be it. I can't seem to care anymore about what I'm supposed to do.

The night was very stark, alternate streams of town cars and chequered taxicabs, blaring horns busily staking claims—here is the road and here is the sidewalk. But the road looked so much livelier, what if I tried the road?