298 Quotes by Helen Oyeyemi

Home is where your teapots are.

I always wanted to be a writer! But I wanted to do other things, too - be a psychologist, a librarian, et cetera. Now Ive decided that reading fiction that features characters who are in those professions will do.

It occurred to me that I was unhappy. And it didn’t feel so very terrible. No urgency, nothing. I could slip out of my life on a slow wave like this—it didn’t matter. I don’t have to be happy. All I have to do is hold on to something and wait.

The girl was lighter without her heart. She danced barefoot on the hot roads, and her feet were not cut by the glass or stones that studded her way. She spoke to the dead whenever they visited her. She tried to be kind, but they realised that they no longer had anything in common with her, and she realised it, too. So they went their separate ways.

And she walked away, and she walked away, and that was that, and that was that.

If you should find yourself in a place that is indifferent to you and there is someone there that your spirit stretches to, then that person is kin.

Nobody ever warned me about mirrors, so for many years I was fond of them, and believed them to be trustworthy. . .

Solitary people, these book lovers. 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.

You don’t return people’s smiles—it’s perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains.