Oyinkan Braithwaite

"Writing for me is an act of discovery, I am learning about the characters even as I am writing them. In reality, we rarely know why people do the things they do. I think it is enough, sometimes, to simply point to something and allow the readers to reach their own conclusions."

"As an individual I’m attracted to strong female characters – my characters have always been people who own themselves. Even if they’re strongly doing something wrong, they’ve always been powerful people."

"We have a wide divide between classes and we have a wide divide between cultures because we’re from different tribes, we have different religions. You don’t have to walk very far to see someone who has a really different life from you...I wouldn’t want to write a novel and people feel that I’m speaking to a Nigerian experience – I’m speaking to my experience, to the things I’m interested in, and that’s all I can do."

"Here in Nigeria, being the first born is a huge, huge role. It's a huge responsibility. It's a big deal. You're treated - from the get-go, you're treated differently. You know, there's a kind of proverb here. I'm not sure what language it's in, but where they say, the eldest child is the one that opened the womb."

"It’s because she is beautiful, you know. That’s all it is. They don’t really care about the rest of it. She gets a pass at life."

"I know better than to take life directions from someone without a moral compass."

"It takes a whole lot longer to dispose of a body than to dispose of a soul, especially if you don’t want to leave any evidence of foul play."

"She does not cry for me,” he says, his voice hardening. “She cries for her lost youth, her missed opportunities and her limited options. She does not cry for me, she cries for herself."

"Is there anything more beautiful than a man with a voice like an ocean?"

"That’s how it has always been. Ayoola would break a glass, and I would receive the blame for giving her the drink. Ayoola would fail a class, and I would be blamed for not coaching her. Ayoola would take an apple and leave the store without paying for it, and I would be blamed for letting her get hungry."

"We are nothing if not thorough in our deception of others."

"There is music blasting from Ayoola's room, she's listening to Whitney Housten's I Wanna Dance With Somebody. It would be more appropriate to play Brymo or Lorde, something solemn or yearning, rather than the musical equivalent of a pack of M&Ms."

"Love is not a weed, It cannot grow where it please…"

"“For the average male, this wouldn’t be all that peculiar—but this man was meticulous. His bookshelf was arranged alphabetically by author. His bathroom was stocked with the full range of cleaning supplies; he even bought the same brand of disinfectant as I did. And his kitchen shone. Ayoola seemed out of place here—a blight in an otherwise pure existence.”"

"(Chapter 5, Pages 7-9)"

"Ayoola is draped across my bed in her pink lace bra and black lace thong. She is incapable of practical underwear. Her leg is dangling off one end, her arm dangling off the other. Hers is the body of a music video vixen, a scarlet woman, a succubus. It belies her angelic face.”"

"(Chapter 8, Page 19)"