"I looked at Jaja and wondered if the dimness in his eyes was shame. I suddenly wished, for him, that he had done the ima mmuo, the initiation into the spirit world. I knew very little about it; women were not supposed to know anything at all, since it was the first step toward the initiation to manhood. But Jaja once told me that he heard that boys were flogged and made to bathe in the presence of a taunting crowd. The only time Papa had talked about the ima mmuo was to say that the Christians who let their sons do it were confused, that they would end up in hellfire."

"I thought the Igwe was supposed to stay at his place and receive guests. I didn’t know he visits people’s homes,’ Amaka said, as we went downstairs. ‘I guess that’s because your father is a Big Man.’"

"( Page 93)"

"When she made a U-turn and went back the way we had come, I let my mind drift, imagining God laying out the hills of Nsukka with his wide white hands, crescent-moon shadows underneath his nails just like Father Benedict’s."

"(Page 131)"

"Morality, as well as the sense of taste, is relative.’"

"This cannot go on, nwunye m,’ Aunty Ifeoma said. ‘When a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your head.’"