Quotes from Bernardine Evaristo

even though she's considered reasonably attractive (as in not 100% ugly), with her own unique style (part 90s Goth, part post-hip hop, part slutty ho, part alien), she's having to compete with images of girls on fucksites with collagen pouts and their bloated silicone tits out

they were two halves of a circle moving towards completion

Yazz sometimes has sleepless nights worrying she'll be alone for the whole of her life if she can't get a proper boyfriend at nineteen what hope is there for when she's older?

Megan was part Ethiopian, part African-American, part Malawian, and part English which felt weird when you broke it down like that because essentially she was just a complete human being

it felt like she was coming in from the cold

If there's one thing she's learned in the past forty-eight hours, anyone can be a relative

her body will free-up itself from the up-tightness of city life and she's going to walk with more lyricalness

made the mistake of asking Waris why she wore a headscarf Yazz looked up from her muesli expecting to see Waris kick off, instead, she dug her spoon in her thick porridge and said in a surprisingly mild voice that it's Number One – cultural, Number

the house breathes differently when Yazz isn't there

she breastfed her wherever she happened to be, and didn't care who was offended at a mother's need to feed her child

she surprised herself at the strength of her grief

then her mother died, devoured from the inside by the ruthless, ravenous, carnivorous disease that started off with one organ before moving on to destroy the others

it's like the years are swiftly regressing until the lifetimes between them no longer exist this is not about feeling something or about speaking words this is about being together

t]here's no need to be breaking balls here ... because there are no men here, which is why we come across as serene to you, we can just be ourselves, reclaiming the Feminine Divine, connecting to and protecting Mother Earth, sharing our resources, making decisions communally but maintaining our privacy and autonomy, self-healing the female body and psyche with yoga, martial arts, walking, running, meditation, spiritual practice ... whatever works for each one of us ...

Winsome wished he hadn't awakened a longing in her that he wouldn't satisfy. He'd given her a taste of himself and then withdrawn it. She didn't hate him for it, she wanted him more because of it.

Carole loves dancing like a warrior queen to frenzied beats of the war-painted shamanistic godfather, Fela Kuti

Penelope embarked on a campaign to lobby Giles for her return ti work, who still insisted she remain at home sit was the natural order of things going back to time immemorial: me hunter - you homemaker me breadwinner - you bread-maker me child maker - you child raiser

Nzinga then launched into the racial implications of stepping on a black doormat rather than over it, of not wearing black socks (why would you step on your own people?), and don't ever use black garbage bags, she instructed, as for blackmail, blackball, black mood, black magic, black sheep, black-hearted, I never wear black underpants, for example, why crap on myself? I'm surprised you all don't know this already

others were showing off the jobs they'd got, the boyfriends who'd proposed, the babies on the way, the countless nights on the lash where they'd had the best time of their lives clubbing-partying-festivalling-getting-drunk-high and being happyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappy, with complexions filtered to perfection

Penelope came to the conclusion that marrying someone when you're in love with them was perhaps not such a good idea, netter to wait a few years (ten, twenty, thirty, never?) to see if you're still compatible after the passion has subsided and reality set in.

We slaves don't end relationships. Other people do it for us. Often we don't start them either, other people do it for us. We're encouraged to breed merely to increase the workforce.

Nzinga had suggested her relationship history of blonde girlfriends might be a sign of self-loathing; you have to ask yourself if you've been brainwashed by the white beauty ideal, sister, you have to work a lot harder on your black feminist politics, you know

It was so odd seeing a stage full of black women tonight, all of the as dark or darker than her, a first, although rather than feel validated, she felt slightly embarrassed. If only the play was about the first black woman prime minister of Britain, or a Nobel prize-winner for science, or a self-made billionaire, someone who represented legitimate success at the highest levels, instead of lesbian warriors strutting around and falling for each other.

she had to give up her independence and submit completely? wasn't that being like a male chauvinist? Dominique felt like an altered version of herself after a while, her mind foggy, emotions primal, senses heightened she enjoyed the sex and affection – outside in the fields when summer arrived, wantonly naked in the heat, unworried about anyone coming across them, what Nzinga called Dominique's sexual healing, as if she'd