Shirlene Obuobi > Quotes

“Strong isn’t a personality trait. It’s a sign that you’re neglected and not protected. It’s just as much evidence of your trauma as it is of your triumph. So this year, I say, enough with strength. I’m entering my damsel era.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“All this time, I'd assumed that being a doctor meant performing miracles. Fixing bodies. Saving lives. I had hardly considered the flip side of that coin: that it also meant looking a patient's family in the eye and telling them to say their last goodbyes. That it meant staring down the permanence of death over and over again, until it stopped feeling like something to be prevented at all costs and instead became something to be occasionally embraced.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“You might think love is unconditional because you’ve been loved unconditionally. But from everything I’ve seen, for a woman to be loved, she has to serve a purpose. She has to look good on your arm, but not too good or she’s a slut. She has to be sensual but puritan, needs to work or she’s a gold digger, but not more than her man or she’s a harpy. She can’t gain weight, or she’ll have let herself go, and if she has your children, she has to prioritize them over herself at every turn or she’s a bad mother. She has to be strong, the backbone of the family, an extension of a man instead of his partner. If she defies any of these terms, most people won’t blame a man for telling the world that his love for her has dried up.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“When you’ve been living in darkness so long, you learn to function within it. You start to feel like the light is just a myth, like everyone else squints their way through life too. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You deserve more than a perpetual dusk.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“You can tell a lot about a person by how they react to someone’s truth. Talk to them straight, without all the social niceties, and they’ll let you know sooner rather than later if they’re someone you can trust.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“Just because you’re pretty doesn’t mean you get to be an asshole.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“Like—here’s a question for you: When you imagine a world without limits, without bills, without duty and expectations, what do you see yourself doing?”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“It was aggravating, being in love with someone who could see all of your secrets in your face except for the ones that mattered the most.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“As you wish,' he said, and then he was fireman-carrying her over his threshold and into the permanent home he'd made for her in his heart.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“I really like you too,” I said softly. We giggled together, giddy as teenagers. But unlike my teen years, there was zero chance of my momma busting down the door to interrupt.* Nothing stopping me from letting the mouth that was”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“for a woman to be loved, she has to serve a purpose.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“But today, there was only me. And that was okay, because I was excellent company.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“Strong isn’t a personality trait. It’s a sign that you’re neglected and not protected. It’s just as much evidence of your trauma as it is of your triumph. So this year, I say, enough with strength.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“was supposed to be. I’d made it to almost twenty-five before convincing a man to commit to me, and even he hadn’t made it a year before saying “never mind.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“deeper, more fundamental than that. It was love, or at least something like it, and I was tired of trying to fool myself into thinking it was anything less.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“an experiment, or a question that we both answered with an emphatic yes. Warmth trailed down my body, like I’d taken a long draft of wine, and settled in my fingertips and the parts of my body where we touched. We kissed for a long time, my arms twining around his neck, his hands sliding down my sides to clasp me at the waist.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“strong. And I’m here to say: enough of that. Strong isn’t a personality trait. It’s a sign that you’re neglected and not protected. It’s just as much evidence of your trauma as it is of your triumph. So this year, I say, enough with strength. I’m entering my damsel era. I’m eating cake and being pretty and crying when I’m hurt, and apologizing for none of it. Won’t you join me?”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“And Ricky wasn’t helping. In the forty-eight hours or so since we’d stepped boldly out of the friend zone, he’d been doing his best to plant seeds about the possibility of a long-term us into my head. He talked about attending music festivals that were a year away, posited taking a trip to Puerto Rico in February to escape the worst of winter. Yesterday, he’d even entertained the possibility of me”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“I would do it again,” I said, setting our glasses down hard on the table. “You were disrespectful to me. I won’t tolerate that. Being family doesn’t get you a free pass to talk to me however you’d like.” I tore off a paper towel for both of us, then sat. “Let’s eat.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“Be aware that standing out might not always be in your best interest, and relish the irony that existing in your unaltered self is considered a statement.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers

“renewing. If I had to let go of a love that was not quite that, that was okay. Because I loved myself, and these women had taught me how.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“Hey,” he said, and I licked my lips, watching as he homed in on the motion. “I’m going to kiss you now. Is that okay?”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“Ricky had seen the full, unfiltered range of what I was, and he liked me. Just as I was. Angie Appiah, with no edits.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“I really like you,” Ricky said in response, and I warmed under those words, letting their”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“No one before him had managed that, no matter how poorly they fit the script for what a fuckboy”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“they did want the kind of woman that society told them they should—thinner than me, paler than me, less educated and more in awe of them than I ever could be—they left.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“I just want you to be careful,” Tabatha repeated. “I don’t like seeing my big sis get hurt.” “I won’t,” I promised, and left it at that.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“I’d thought there would be an end to the depth of my feelings for Ricky, but somehow every time I saw him, I fell exponentially”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“Tabatha tutted me. “Yeah, well, some of us can handle it.” She pointed at my chest. “You? No way. Your heart is attached to your vagina.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation

“And at first, I was pissed. She’d cheated on me, right? Met some other guy and was carrying on right under my nose . . . but then, I realized that I’d been doing the same thing. With you.”
― Shirlene Obuobi, On Rotation