Chavio

“She had a formidable air; a person who went about setting everyone and everything right in the world.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“Why was "nigger" bleeped out? I mean, "nigger" is a word that exists. People use it. It is part of America. It has caused a lot of pain to people and I think it is insulting to bleep it out. ...it's like being in denial. If it was used like that, then it should be represented like that. Hiding it doesn't make it go away.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“...she was uncomfortable with what the professors called "participation," and did not see why it should be part of the final grade; it merely made students talk and talk, class time wasted on obvious words, hollow words, sometimes meaningless words. It had to be that Americans were taught, from elementary school, to always say something in class, no matter what. They never said, "I don't know." They said, instead, "I'm not sure," which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge. They avoided giving direct instructions: they did not say "Ask somebody upstairs"; they said "You might want to ask somebody upstairs." When you tripped and fell, when you choked, when misfortune befell you, they did not say, "Sorry." They said "Are you okay?" when it was obvious that you were not. And when you said "Sorry" to them when they choked or tripped or encountered misfortune, they replied, eyes wide with surprise, "Oh, it's not your fault.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“My mother's desire to reach those waves, touch her feet to another ocean on the other side of the country, was all she was thinking of--the pure baptismal goal of it. Whoosh and you can start all over again. Or was life more like the horrible game in gym that has you running from one side of an enclosed space to another, picking up and setting down wooden blocks without end?”
― Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones