Quotes from Helen Oyeyemi

So many times I've encountered people who are just kind of like, 'Yeah, Nigeria,' and, you know, thump their chest and seem very sure of, like, being Nigerian. And I'm just kind of, like, I wish I could be that sure.

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.

Imagine having a mother who worries that you read too much. The question is, what is it that's supposed to happen to people who read too much? How can you tell when someone's crossed the line.

I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don't have names.

The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it's ready and then your ghost pours the resurrection potion out of the moka pot.

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

Her heart was heavy because it was open, and so things filled it, and so things rushed out of it, but still the heart kept beating, tough and frighteningly powerful and meaning to shrug off the rest of her and continue on its own.

I wish there was someone I could have written to after that, someone I could have written to explain how awful it was to have someone touch you, then look at you properly and change his mind.

I think Poe's quite good, actually. The whole casual horror thing. Like someone standing next to you and screaming their head off and you asking them what the fuck and them stopping for a moment to say 'Oh you know, I'm just afraid of death' and then they keep on with the screaming.

there's a difference between having no one because you've chosen it and having no one because everyone has been taken away.

Once you let people know anything about what you think, that's it, you're dead. Then they'll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons.

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.

That's the ideal meeting...once upon a time, only once, unexpectedly, then never again.

A library at night is full of sounds: the unread books can't stand it any longer and announce their contents, some boasting, some shy, some devious.

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

For reasons of my own I take note of the way people act when they're around mirrors.

With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but more often than not. With girls, Why her? came up so quickly.

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

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.

And without further argument he unsheathed the sword and cleaved Miss Foxe's head from her neck. He knew what was supposed to happen. He knew that this awkward, whispering creature before him should now transform into a princess - dazzlingly beautiful, free, and made wise by her hardship. That is not what happened.

I was born, and then I was quietly resentful of that fact for a few years...but then I went to a library and it was okay.

it's not whiteness itself that sets Them against Us, but the worship of whiteness. Same goes if you swap whiteness out for other things-- fancy possessions for sure, pedigree, maybe youth too... we beat Them (and spare ourselves a lot of tedium and terror) by declining to worship.

The general advice is always be yourself, be yourself, which only makes sense if you haven't got an attitude problem.

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