Ella

“But I've learned that you can't force forever on the wrong people. They belong exactly where they are, giving exactly what they want to. I don't ask for anything more. I figure I shouldn't have to.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

“We understood what was necessary -humans often fail at listening, as if their stubbornness will convince the truth to change, as if they have that kind of power. They do, however, understand forceful things, cruelties--they obey those.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

“Female psychopaths, researchers eventually realized, don't present like the males. To which I respond: No shit. We women have an emotional wiliness that shellacs us in glossy patina of caring. We have been raised to take interest in promoting healthy interior lives of other humans; preparation, I suppose, for taking on the emotional labor of motherhood - or marriage; either way, really. Few women come into maturity unscathed by the suffocating pink press of girlhood, and even psychopaths are touched by the long, frilly arm of feminine expectations. It's not that women psychopaths don't exist; it's that we fake it better than men.”
― Chelsea G. Summers, A Certain Hunger

“Sometimes, you recognize truth because it destroys you for a bit.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater