"Is it a good life, Daddy?” Nkiru has taken to asking lately on the phone, with that faint, vaguely troubling American accent. It is not good or bad, I tell her, it is simply mine. And that is what matters."

"She had come to understand that American parenting was a juggling of anxieties, and that it came with having too much food: a sated belly gave Americans time to worry that their child might have a rare disease that they had just read about, made them think that they had the right to protect their child from disappointment and want and failure. A sated belly gave Americans the luxury of praising themselves for being good parents, as if caring for one’s child were the exception rather than the rule."

"to protect her from looking at her own reflection with dissatisfaction”"

"He used to make me feel that nothing I said was witty enough or sarcastic enough or smart enough. He was always struggling to be different, even when it didn’t matter. It was as if he was performing his life instead of living his life."

"non-slim, non-white women are [also] beautiful”"

"Later, Chika will read in The Guardian that "the reactionary Hausa-speaking Muslims in the North have a history of violence against non-Muslims," and in the middle of her grief, she will stop to remember that she examined the nipples and experienced the gentleness of a woman who is Hausa and Muslim."

"Men, women and children all eventually become victims of war but women always appear to be double victims"

"Motherhood is a glorious gift, but do not define yourself solely by motherhood. Be a full person. Your child will benefit from that.”"

"Nkem imagines the proud young men, muscled, brown skin gleaming with palm kernel oil, graceful loincloths on their waists. She imagines—and this she imagines herself because Obiora did not suggest it happened that way—the proud young men wishing they did not have to behead strangers to bury their king, wishing they could use the masks to protect themselves, too, wishing they had a say.”"

"It's a laugh I know, one most women I know have. Mother has it, too. Laughter you use when nothing is funny, but you are lighthearted and resilient and eager to show it."

"her body belongs to her and her alone, [and] that she should never feel the need to say yes to something she does not want”"

"Romance will happen, so be on board”"

"All women are owned by someone, some are owned by many; a beautiful girl's only advantage is that she may get to choose her owner"

"I was sick with longing. I was sick with the curse of sensation, with all the world's sadness seeking and finding a resting place in my bones and in my marrow."

"saintliness is not a prerequisite for dignity”"

"The first is your premise, the solid unbending belief that you start off with. What is your premise? Your feminist premise should be: I matter. I matter equally. Not ‘if only.’ Not ‘as long as.’ I matter equally. Full stop.”"

"“I think everything is a story unless you live in it. I like the idea of a god who knows what it’s like to be a twin. To have no memory of ever being alone. To be happy you are different from your twin but also to be sad about it. To know almost everything about your twin and sometimes want to stop knowing so much. To know you were born with everything you will ever need for love but to be afraid that this one person is too important. Or that this person will never be enough. To pray to a god like that, all I would ever have to say is help me.”"

"I was sick with longing. I was sick with the curse of sensation, with all the world's sadness seeking and finding a resting place in my bones and in my marrow."

"Teach her about difference”"

"I need protekson; no one kill me in de day or in de night. Give me tese t'ings, and I will vote for you. I swear I will."

"When you are out, you crave to enter. Those who are inside crave to get out"

"Keep it clean and you will not regret entering. Make it dirty, and regret your entry. If marriage is different, then I did not write this."

"The men pounced on them, pulling them up forcefully and pushing them out. They never returned… Later, stories were told of how their heads were shattered with heavy iron rods, their brains spilling on the ground. According to the stories, their bodies were dragged to some location and, before long, vultures began to hover around"

"Before anyone could shout ‘take cover’, they heard ‘gboam, gboam, boom, boom, kpoom!’ One fast plane had dropped a string of lethal bombs as it whistled past the helpless traders who had already dropped their goods and were lying flat on the ground… The harassed women got up slowly…"

"How many more times do we have to come to terms with death before we find safety?" he asked.He waited a few minutes, but the three of us didn't say anything. He continued: "Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I close my eyes and wait for death. Even though I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die and all that will be left is my empty body walking with you. It will be quieter than I am."

"I was still hesitant to let myself let go, because I still believed in the fragility of happiness"

"So she took Anikwenwa on long walks, telling him that the land from that palm tree to that plantain tree was theirs, that his grandfather had passed it on to his father. She told him the same things over and over, even though he looked bored and bewildered, and she did not let him go and play in moonlight unless she was watching.”"

"“Her father found her exhausting, this sharp-tongued, head-strong daughter who had once wrestled her brother to the ground. (After which her father had warned everybody not to let the news leave the compound that the girl had thrown a boy.)”"

"This story] would cause her to make a clear link between education and dignity."

"Bits of Gonma’s mother’s flesh were strewn all over the ground. It was heart breaking and the women virtually rent their hearts."

"she, unlike others, had not spent too much time going round and round in her speech”"

"sharp-tongued, headstrong,” and he often found her exhausting because she was the type of girl who crossed gender lines and “wrestled her brother to the ground”"

"she had believed that her chi and his chi had destined their marriage” and could not otherwise be deterred from her plans to marry him"

"primitive culture instead of a worthwhile topic like African Alliances in the American-Soviet Tensions”"

"silently carve[s] designs on her pottery uncertain of how to handle a woman crying about things that did not deserve tears”"

"grace in her straight back”"

"Did Nwamgba not know that Obierika was an only child, that his late father had been an only child whose wives had lost pregnancies and buried babies? Perhaps somebody in their family had committed the taboo of selling a girl into slavery and the earth god Ani was visiting misfortune on them.”"

"[The rebel federal soldiers’] favourite pastime was to hunt for and abduct young females or older ones in the absence of young ladies or mere girls, in the absence of either. They had no respect for females found within the invaded areas. They would not kill them. They would rather abduct and violate them"

"lost pregnancies and buried babies”"

"We have big dreams of building libraries and providing books for state schools that don’t have anything in their libraries, and also of organizing lots and lots of workshops, in reading and writing”"

"the Igala and Edo traders, [and] the white-skinned men”"

"What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children.”"

"regain a kind of paradise” and see people as more than just one incomplete idea"

"But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized.”"

"his name [is] Anikwenwa as far as she [is] concerned”"

"how [stories] are told, who tells them, when they're told, [and] how many stories are told”"

"had bought into the single story”, automatically associating all Mexicans with immigration"

"saved [her] from having a single story of what books are” and becoming another victim of a biased sample of literature"

"“Jaja’s defiance seems like Ifeoma’s experimental purple hibiscus: rare, fragrant with the undertones of freedom, a different kind of freedom from the one the crowds waving green leaves chanted at Government Square after the coup. A freedom to be, to do.”"

"A love sip, he called it, because you shared the little things you loved with the people you loved The tea was always too hot, always burned my tongue.”"