Quotes from Helen Oyeyemi

Mr. Fox didn't come, he didn't come, he didn't.

If you were the first of three siblings, then you were going to make a big mistake, and that was that.

But then, maybe "I don't believe in you" is the cruellest way to kill a monster.

I often think it would be such a luxury to go mad, and not have to worry about anything. [...] There would be some sort of doctor there to tell me: "Don't worry, Mary, it's just that you're mad. Now be quiet and take this pill." And I would think, So that's all is is, and I would be glad. But aloud I would say, "What? I'm perfectly sane! You're mad...." Only mildly, though; just for show, really.

While telling her I realised that the story of her is much more to do with how she is ended than how she began.

Our exchanges always seem to turn into whatever he wants them to.

Harriet's mother, Margot, is no fan of gingerbread. She stood alone over her mixing bowl and stirred with the clenched fist of a pugilist.

And there we all were, Miranda, her father, her brother and I, sharing oxygen around a dinner table

I needed words, lots of words to think about while I was going about the rest of the day. And I didn't want anything affected. I wanted nothing to do with those Romance languages. I wanted clipped words, full of common sense. Thoughts to wear beneath my thoughts. Allow, express, oath, vow, dismay, matter, splash, mollify. I liked those words. I liked saying them. I still do.

Her gamblder was in hospital. There'd been heavy losses at the blackjack table, his wife had discovered what he'd been up to, developed a wholly unexpected strength ("inhuman strength," he called it) broken both of his arms, and then moved in with a carpenter who'd clearly been keeping her company while he'd been out working on their finances.

And all the while there was the theater of my hands. It was theater, in that it was the performance of something that was true, and as such, I believed in it with all my heart but was also able to come to the end of it at a moment's notice.

It turns out that the average annoyed American only needs to pull three terrible faces before she feels better.

I've always had a hard time figuring out what the moral of a story is supposed to be, and she was bound to know: She'd been to college.

Where does character come into it? Just this: I've always been pretty sure I could kill someone if I had to. Myself, or my father—whichever option proved most practical. I wouldn't kill for hatred's sake; I'd only do it to solve a problem. And only after other solutions have failed. That kind of bottom line is either in your character or it isn't, and like I said, it develops early.

Have you ever heard a note in someone's voice that said 'This is the end?' I heard it in the next words he said to me, and I stopped listening.

Who's there? Something old? Someone holy...?

Why are you reading that book? Are you in doubt about something?

Yes, but that's personal preference and our desire to honor what's ours, Day," Hilde said. "I know," said Day. "And I do. But I want to read everything. When it comes to books and who can put things in them and get things out of them, it's all ours. And all theirs too. So we go in, see what books they have, take a few and replace them with a few of ours." "No

On a dais in a London church, the Virgin Mary sits suprised by a rough crest of candlelight. The discomforture isn't in her expression but in the fluid form her carving takes, the way peaceful eyes rest in sockets that threaten to release them. Either the wood is eccentrically soft, or this sculpture remains a tree, alert (despite careful varnishing and a wide, warning ring of sacred space around it) to a propensity to burn.

Was turning it this way and that in order to catch fireflies in the billowing, transparent left sleeve of her gown.

Now, St. John could have been born into his elegance. It's a dangerous kind of elegance—he doesn't raise his voice, he lowers it.

A house of stone and glass and iron should be stark and sober, a watchtower from which a benevolent guard is kept over society. But the white stone of this particular house rippled as if reacting to a hand that had found its most pleasurable point of contact.

The stormy night turned the window of Lucy's room into a door;

Lily's eye transformed places. She looked at structures and they turned inside out and offered her their desolate jigsaw patterns. Once