VanessaO > VanessaO's Quotes

“It’s funny, really, because what my mum dislikes in my brother is what my brother dislikes in my mum, but neither of them can see they’re arguing with themselves.”
― Jessica George, Maame

“...but if your heart is open, she thought with a sigh, it doesn't matter how smart you are, how cautious, whether you move so fast, if you're weak or strong, how good. If you leave the door open, someone's going to find their way in”
― Vanessa Walters, The Nigerwife

“The Dubai of Africa is happening.” “What is here? What is happening? Property speculation will ruin everyone.” “The oil price is up. We have a new president. It’s a good time. We are the sleeping giant of Africa, soon to awake like Sleeping Beauty.”
― Vanessa Walters, The Nigerwife

“The Nigerwives were so different, a pick ’n’ mix of skin tones, hair textures, body shapes, and facial features, but their stories were one and the same. They had all defied the pride and prejudices of their families, sacrificed friendships and careers and independence, and followed heart and husband to Nigeria”
― Vanessa Walters, The Nigerwife

“Courage without conscience is foolishness.”
― Chimeka Garricks, Tomorrow Died Yesterday

“At home in Nigeria, all a mother had to do for a baby was wash and feed him and, if he was fidgety, strap him onto her back and carry on with her work while that baby slept. But in England she had to wash piles and piles of nappies, wheel the child round for sunshine during the day, attend to his feeds as regularly as if one were serving a master, talk to the child, even if he was only a day old! Oh, yes, in England, looking after babies was in itself a full-time job.”
― Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen

“One thing she did know was the greatest book on human psychology is the Bible. If you were lazy and did not wish to work, or if you had failed to make your way in society, you could always say, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' If you were a jet-set woman who believed in sleeping around, VD or no VD, you could always say Mary Magdalene had no husband, but didn't she wash the feet of Our Lord? Wasn't she the first person to see our risen saviour? If, in the other hand, you believed in the inferiority of the blacks, you could always say, 'Slaves, obey your masters.' It is a mysterious book, one of the greatest of all books, if not the greatest. Hasn't it got all the answers?”
― Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen

“Typical Igbo psychology; men never do wrong, only the women; they have to beg for forgiveness, because they are bought, paid for and must remain like that, silent, obedient slaves.”
― Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen

“Adah could not stop thinking about her discovery that the whites were just as fallible as everyone else. There were bad whites and good whites, just as there were bad blacks and good blacks! Why then did they claim to be superior?”
― Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen

“After all, my father, with all his brilliance, was wallowing in poverty. I shuddered at the thought of ending up like him - full brain, empty pocket.”
― Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, I Do Not Come to You by Chance

“Okuko si na ya anaghi eti ka egbe ji ya haa ya; kama na ya na-eti ka oha nuru olu ya. The chicken carried away by a hawk says that it is crying not so that the thing carrying it will let it go, but so that the public will hear its voice and be witness.”
― Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, I Do Not Come to You by Chance