Women Authors From The United Kingdom

"Theology and science have got a lot in common. For one thing, they’re often considered too hard, or too abstract, for ordinary people to understand. Their study is — apparently — reserved to those rare brains who can understand the complexity of the natural or social world. Ordinary people can only begin to understand a simplified version of these subjects. But despite this stereotype, both subjects also form part of our common human heritage, helping us to ask and answer key questions about what makes up the world around us, as well as how and why it works. (2022)"

"I don’t want to write trauma for trauma’s sake. I want to write it in a way that leads to empathy. To action."

"It is so critical to understand that speaking up transcends the ability to help just the person speaking up, but knowing that whenever we use our voices, we are doing so for many others who have suffered the same experiences or injustices. It is about starting crucial conversations that would hopefully lead to positive change. It is about refusing to be complacent, to accept what is seen as the norm."

"It’s so heartbreaking that we’re killing talent. We’re killing intelligence. We’re killing future leaders. We’re killing brains, inventors. We’re killing so much by not allowing these girls to be educated."

"When you get up every day, I want you to remind yourself that tomorrow will be better than today. That you are a person of value. That you are important."

"Kike picks up her basket, sets it on her head, leaves it to balance by itself. The girls in our village learn how to do this from when they are first growing two teeth. They know how to use every part of their body to work so that their hand can be free to do even more work."

"“In our land, a sad wife is better than a happy woman with no husband.”"

"That’s the disgusting reality about the human ability to adapt. At first the shock, the repulsion, is all in 3D — sights and sounds and smells. You recoil and gag and wish for a bath and cry at the devastation. Time passes. You live in it. You spend time in it. You blend, and everything fizzles to normalcy, and that which once repulsed slowly becomes natural, acceptable if you do nothing. That, I realize, is what culture is: doing things a certain way until you get used to it."

"Trees, they die dead like people too. They need care too. The earth around us needs care. We come from earth, we eat from earth, and one day we must go back to earth, so why are we treating it so bad?"

"I tear to pieces the paper, and throw it to the floor. Then I swim deep inside the river of my soul, find the key from where it is sitting, full of rust, at the bottom of the river, and open the lock. I kneel down beside my bed, close my eyes, turn myself into a cup, and pour the memory out of me."

"“Fifteen years ago, I was selling cheap materials from my boot, going from place to place, looking for customers. I wasn’t born into wealth. I have worked hard for my success. I fought for it. It wasn’t easy, especially because my husband, Chief, he didn’t have a job. If you want to be like me in business, Adunni, you will need to work very hard. Rise about whatever life throws at you. And never, ever give up on your dreams. Do you understand?”"

"But there are words in my head, many things I want to say. I want to tell Ms. Tia I am sorry I made her come here. I want to ask why the doctor didn’t come too. Why didn’t he come and get a beating like his wife? If it takes two people to make a baby, why only one person, the woman, is suffering when the baby is not coming? Is it because she is the one with breast and the stomach for being pregnant? Or because of what? I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?"

"“But you were blind to your wife’s depression and silent resentment. She hid it from you because she loved you. And you were blind to it because society offers you that blindfold, that thick cloth of entitlement, patriarchy, at birth.”"

"She open her eyes, give me a sad smile. “I wish I am a man, but I am not, so I do the next thing I can do. I marry a man.”"

"I am leaving Ikati. This is what I been wanting all my life, to leave this place and see what the world outside is looking like, but not like this. Not with a bad name following me. Not like a person that the whole village is looking for because they think she have kill a woman. Not with one half of my heart with Kayus and the other half with Khadija. I hang my head down, feeling a thick, heavy cloth as it is covering me. The thick cloth of shame, of sorrow, of heart pain."

"When she come out, she draw deep breath and her chest, wide like blackboard, is climbing up and down, up and down. It is as if this woman is using her nostrils to be collecting all the heating from the outside and making us to be catching cold. I am standing beside Mr. Kola, and his body is shaking like my own. Even the trees in the compound, the yellow, pink, blue flowers in the long flowerpot, all of them too are shaking."

"“When you begin to born your children, you will not be too sad again,” she say. “When I first marry Morufu, I didn’t want to born children. I was too afraid of having a baby so quick, afraid of falling sick from the load of it. So I take something, a medicine, to stop the pregnant from coming. But after two months, I say to myself, ‘Khadija, if you don’t born a baby, Morufu will send you back to your father’s house.’ So I stop the medicine and soon I born my first girl, Alafia. When I hold her in my hands for the first time, my heart was full of so much love. Now, my children make me laugh when I am not even thinking to laugh. Children are joy, Adunni. Real joy.”"

"Write your truth, Ms. Tia say. Your truth."

"I didn’t tell Ms. Tia that I ever marry Morufu or about all the things he did to me in the room after he drink Fire-Cracker. I didn’t tell her about what happen to Khadija. I didn’t tell her because I have to keep it inside one box in my mind, lock the box, and throw the key inside river of my soul. Maybe one day, I will swim inside the river, find the key."

"“Your dead mother and me, we are age-mates. God forbid for me to share my husband with my own child. God forbid that I am waiting for you to finish with my husband before I can enter his room. Ah, you will suffer in this house. Ask Khadija, she will tell you that I am a wicked woman. That my madness is not having cure.”"

"Now I know that speaking good English is not the measure of intelligent mind and sharp brain. English is only a language, like Yoruba and Igbo and Hausa. Nothing about it is so special, nothing about it makes anybody have sense."

"Who knows what else tomorrow will bring? So, I nod my head yes, because it is true, the future is always working, always busy unfolding better things, and even if it doesn’t seem so sometimes, we have hope of it."

"“Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come.” That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind voice . . . I want a louding voice."

"I want to tell her that God is not a cement building of stones and sand. That God is not for all that putting inside a house and locking Him there. I want her to know that the only way to know if a person find God and keep Him in their heart is to check how the person is treating other people, if he treats people like Jesus says--with love, patience, kindness, and forgiveness."

"We all be speaking different because we all are having different growing-up life, but we can all be understanding each other if we just take the time to listen well."

"Not his-story. My own will be called her-story."

"“My mama say education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice, Ms. Tia. I want a louding voice,” I say. “I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking. I want to live in this life and help many people so that when I grow old and die, I will still be living through the people I am helping.“"

"I feel a free that I didn't feel in long time. And when I smile, it climb from inside my stomach and spread itself on my teeth."

"You must do good for other peoples, even if you are not well, even if the whole world around you is not well."

"If it takes two people to make a baby, why only one person, the woman, is suffering when the baby is not coming? Is it because she is the one with breast and the stomach for being pregnant? Or because of what? I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than men?"

"Living in Zaire from its neighbor, Congo-Brazzaville. The tower was a medley of gleaming metal tubes and concrete pillars, and its raison d’être was a bit of a mystery: It wasn't particularly beautiful, had been left unfinished for decades, and couldn't be visited. That ambiguity was fitting. The Limete Tower, as it was called, was an exercise in presidential hypocrisy, and a half-hearted one at that. Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's long-ruling dictator, had commissioned it to commemorate his former boss and onetime friend Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of independent Congo. Lumumba was assassinated in January 1961 with the collusion of Western powers worried about his suspected Communist sympathies and determined to keep him from power. In theory, the monument was meant to glorify a national hero, a martyr to imperialism. But the gesture's sincerity was open to question, because Mobutu himself helped ensure Lumumba's death, ordering him to be flown handcuffed to a secessionist province where he was shot by firing squad, his body then dismembered and dissolved in acid."

"As there were more books coming on the scene, there tended to be less about Black people as magical beings or creatures in fantasy, and I definitely wanted to see more of that"

"I want to say that Africa’s history and brilliance is there, and I want to say that Black people can be magical and fantastical creatures, as well as anything else."

"We’re all different and I think it’s important to do what’s best for you."

"For many, agriculture can represent deep pain because of the history of slavery, but also because of current land loss, forced migration and oppressive farm labor practices. But I remember thinking, “Could this be enough to keep us from picking up the plow again?” I think, for some people, possibly it is. But I’d like to think we recognize that our legacy with the land is so much more than that"

"I’d like to see African America lifting up our black farmers, chefs and community food leaders. Our priorities need to be putting our dollars directly into our communities so that black farmer and that black-owned restaurant can keep their doors open, allowing them to keep feeding our communities and keep food culture alive. We need to get better at telling our stories to make that connection with our community."

"Mo gbà yín. Ní àpéjọ, àpéjọ yóò rí ìbùkún àpéjẹ̀ẹ Ìyá Yemoja tí yóo ṣe àpéjọ̀rùn ìrìn àjò àpéjẹ. Kí Olodumare mú ọ dé ilé ní àìléwu àti àláfíà,’ I say, and then repeat the prayer that will glean the woman’s soul. ‘I welcome you. Gathered, you will be blessed by Mother Yemoja, who will ease your journey. May Olodumare take you home to safety and peace. Come forth.’”"

"“‘It’s just…’ But the words won’t come and instead I find myself saying nothing, trying to keep my lips from trembling. The sapphire is cool in my grip as I look down at it, remembering the woman. Folasade floats nearer as my hair waves in front of us. ‘May I?’ she asks. Nodding, I let Folasade sweep my curls away so that we can see each other’s faces clearly. Her eyes are almost black in the water, but they shine with a reverence I know is missing from mine.”"

"I think it’s very important to show Black characters as main characters and to chart their journeys of vulnerability and strength. That was another major highlight of writing this novel."

"Enslaved Africans refused to be stripped of their spirituality, their stories, and in essence, their humanity, and so they took them with them. You can see these connections across the diaspora, from similar tales, a Yoruba speaking community in Colombia, to the deities worshipped in the Caribbean and beyond. Even when it came to religion, Africans showed ingenuity and tenacity in holding onto what mattered to them."

""So there's no lack of poverty anywhere-not even in Warsaw! Ah, well, you'll find plenty of misery everywhere..." (Chapter VIII, p150)"

"The festive season was over, and this was the time of year when an old folk song haunted the air in town and village an old familiar melody that evoked a smile here and a sigh there: "Father, my Father, winter is drawing near, And Father, O Father, a Jew should know no fear, But look, O look, the snow is falling fast, And hark, O hark, at the spiteful wintry blast. See, there goes my roof, the water's coming through, Hurry, Father, hurry, send succour to a poor old Jew!""

"Sometimes, however, even the poems failed her, her harrowed mind would not be soothed, and then she would run out of the home and post herself in the gateway of the house. Or she would lean up against a lamp-post which stood a few yards away and which had not been lit up for years, and she would watch the children at play, gaze after the passers-by who came and went, intent on their trivial tasks, completely absorbed in their humdrum, humble lives. Healthy-minded people. They got on with their work stead-fastly, and it never entered their minds to ask what was it all about? What did they live for? Why? Why? (Chapter VI, p98)"

"It was the Sabbath. And even the wind and the snow rested from their labours. (first lines)"

"Hannah's words had pricked her like a needle. (Chapter III, p35)"

"In modern Yiddish writing, the moral, spiritual, and emotional capital of generations of Jewish women was utilized by male and female writers alike...Female prose writers, such as Fradl Shtok, Esther Kreitman, Rokhl Korn, Kadia Molodowsky, and Khava Rosenfarb, also deepened the awareness and understanding of the feminine contribution to Jewish civilization."

"The small front garden was ablaze with colours and bursting with birdsong. The bright flowers of late summer were talking to each other intimately in their own, wordless language."

"The alleyway exuded an air of Yom Kippur - beautiful, sad and eerily quiet."

"The air downstairs in the cellar was grey and foggy. It smelled of mould and the chill of graves."

"Bella was lying in her narrow, child's bed. She listened to the roaring Nazi aeroplanes and to the dull, faraway explosions and gunfire, which became increasingly clear as the planes came nearer. She heard the whistling sound of the bombs, which by now were coming down almost onto her own roof. As they fell, some of them wept like little children, others howled like mad dogs. She could see the flames through the window, rising up to the sky. Then another fire exploded in the blazing sky with such force it was as if somebody had poured a barrel of petrol onto a burning building. It lit up her girlish bedroom and the bed she was lying in."