"Marriage can be a good thing, a source of joy, love, and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, but we don’t teach boys to do the same?"

"Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage."

"Of course I am not worried about intimating men. The type of man who will be intimidated is exactly the type of man I have no interest in."

"Please love by giving and by taking. Give and be given. If you are only giving and not taking, you’ll know. You’ll know from that small and true voice inside you that we females are so often socialized to silence. Don’t silence that voice. Dare to take."

"trans women are trans women"

"And even though I helped to clean the wounded, I had never taken anyone into my room.But I took this girl into my room.Her name was chinasa."

"You hate men, you hate bras, you hate African culture, you think women should always be in charge, you don’t wear makeup, you don’t shave, you’re always angry, you don’t have a sense of humor, you don’t use deodorant."

"I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else."

"We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much."

"I finally understand why people get tattoos of those they have lost. The need to proclaim not merely the loss but the love, the continuity. I am my father’s daughter. It is an act of resistance and refusal: grief telling you it is over and your heart saying it is not; grief trying to shrink your love to the past and your heart saying it is present."

"Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language."

"Her silence bruised the air between us."

"(Whose writing today most inspires you?) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s work — both fiction and nonfiction..."

"“I am not apologetic for being a Nigerian. I won’t apologise for it; it’s who and what I am.”"

"“Feminism for me is about justice; it’s about the idea that all human beings are equal… Feminism just means equality of opportunity.”"

"“I feel that I have been fortunate to have found success, and I also want the young writers to have what I did not have when I was starting out my writing career … Writing doesn’t exist in a vacuum; we talk about politics, everything.”"

"“We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.”"

"“There are two answers to the things they will teach you about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in school to pass. You must read books and learn both answers.”"

"“If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more.”"

"“Social media has reshaped the traditional power dynamic by giving some access to the powerless, it has also made it easy to mistake the loudest voices for the truest.”"

"“I’ve always been willing to take the consequences of speaking my mind. ... No, no, no. I said what I believe.”"

"“Writing fiction is the love of my life. It's the thing that I think gives me meaning.”"

"“Women in general are more likely to have richer interior lives and are also socialized to just sort of embrace more complexity emotionally.”"

"“I have always longed to be known, truly known by another human being.”"

"Age is irrelevant in grief; at issue is not how old he was but how loved."

"It does not matter whether I want to be changed, because I am changed."

"How is it that the world keeps going, breathing in and out unchanged, while in my soul there is a permanent scattering?"

"And I never told the boy who didn’t love me, the boy I was trying to make love me when I didn’t yet know that you cannot nice your way into being loved."

"For the rest of my life, I will live with my hands outstretched for things that are no longer there."

"I think the first thing is to warn INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) to be careful. It is in their interest to be good neighbors to Nigerians and prove that the country was not a banana republic as the ruling party is making us believe."

"On this score, I will briefly address the re-entry of Biafra as a talking drum in our recent polity. A minister of state (Mrs. Dupe Adelaja) had the recklessness to say that Biafran soldiers cannot enjoy retirement benefits, not minding, for instance, the reality that some of them were Nigerian soldiers before the emergence of Biafra and that pardon has been granted to all ex-Biafran soldiers."

"I verily aver that the right or otherwise of the process of the evolution of the Electoral Bill into the Electoral Act 2001 is trite. However, it is noted that President Olusẹgun Ọbasanjọ has pronounced that no law is perfect and that those opposed to the Electoral Act should go to court. It is equally notable that Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim has indicated that any law can be revisited any time in the future. These are food for sober reflection and positive action. Consequently, a few remarks thereon are mandatory and urgent."