Women Authors From Nigeria

"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."

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

"“There is nothing stopping a beautiful girl from facing her books”"

"“A mother must be vigilant. She must be able and willing to wake up ten times during the night to feed her baby. After her intermittent vigil, she must see everything clearly the next morning so that she can notice any changes in her baby. A mother is not permitted to have blurry vision. She must notice if her baby’s wail is too loud or too low. She must know if the child’s temperature has risen or fallen. A mother must not miss any signs.”"

"“Now hear me well—what is not yours is not yours o, even if you marry the person that has that thing. If it is not yours, it is not yours o.”"

"“I would learn later that Akin could keep himself neatly folded in while he drew out other people. He was the kind of person that many claimed as a dear friend. Many of those people did not even know him, but they never knew they did not know him.”"

"Time was unforgiving, it didn’t stop, not even to give people a chance to scrape themselves off the floor if they’d been shattered."

"“there is no god like a mother”"

"“Even the tongue and the teeth cannot cohabit without fighting”"

"“The reasons why we do the things we do will not always be the ones others will remember. Sometimes I think we have children because we want to leave behind someone who can explain who we were to the world.”"

"“If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break”"

"“Didn’t think it was possible for the world to change so suddenly. I was aware of other people moving up and down the corridor: I heard heels clicking, people speaking, felt some bodies push past mine. But I felt so alone, as though within the space of time it had taken Yejide to say, “They have taken Olamide to the mortuary” I had been transported to a planet with no human life.”"

"“He stared back at her, unconcerned. She had always marvelled at his calm assurance that everything good in his life would either remain the same or get better. He took good fortune for granted. As though it were impossible that it would abide only for a spell. She had never been able to shake the sense that life was war, a series of battles with the occasional spell of good things.”"

"“what would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits”"

"“Di we ever really know what we will do in any situation until the situation presents itself?”[https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/52027766-stay-with-me?page=2"

"“I was overwhelmed with the urge to fill every silence with words. Silence to me was a void in the universe that could suck us all in. It was my assignment to block this deadly void with words and save the world.”"

"“My mother had become a obsession for me, a religion, and the very thought of referring to another woman as Mother seems sacrilegious, a betrayal of the woman who had given up her life for me to live.”[https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/52027766-stay-with-me?page=2"

"“The road stretches before us, shrouded in a darkness transitioning into dawn as it leads me back to you.”[https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/52027766-stay-with-me?page=2"

"“I loved Yejide from the very first moment. No doubt about that. But there are things even love can’t do. Before I got married, I believed love could do anything. I learned soon enough that it couldn’t bear the weight of four years without children. If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But even when it’s in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer love.”"

"“I understand how a word others use every day can become something whispered in the dark to soothe a wound that just won't heal. I remember thinking I would never hear it spoken without unravelling a little, wondering if I would ever get to say it in the light. So I recognise the gift in this simple pronouncement, the promise of a beginning in this one word.”"

"“The reasons why we do the things we do will not always be the ones that others will remember. Sometimes”"

"I am interested in the idea that people should be able to define their own happiness. It’s not just about fertility; we are often told that we need this or that to be happy. We need to be thin, rich or whatever. But maybe we should decide for ourselves what happiness looks like."

"“If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But when it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn't mean it's no longer love.”"

"“OK, we'll tell her you dug the grave." It's the truth - stretch, but still true. Besides, what would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves that we present as the only ones that exist?”"

"“I had expected them to talk about my childlessness. I was armed with millions of smiles. Apologetic smiles, pity-me smiles, I-look-unto-God smiles - name all the fake smiles needed to get through an afternoon with a group of people who claim to want the best for you while poking at your open sore with a stick - and I had them ready. I was ready to listen to them tell me I must do something about my situation. I expected to hear about a new pastor I could visit; a new mountain where I could go to pray; or an old herbalist in a remote village or town whom I could consult. I was armed with smiles for my lips, an appropriate sheen of tears for my eyes and sniffles for my nose. I was prepared to lock up my hairdressing salon throughout the coming week and go in search of a miracle with my mother-in-law in tow. What I was not expecting was another smiling woman in the room, a yellow woman with a blood-red mouth who grinned like a new bride.”"

"“Already, I was coming undone, like a hastily tied scarf coming loose, on the ground before the owner is aware of it.”"

"“I was armed with millions of smiles. Apologetic smiles, pity-me smiles, I-look-unto-God smiles—name all the fake smiles needed to get through an afternoon with a group of people who claim to want the best for you while poking at your open sore with a stick—and I had them ready.”"

"I wanted to write about extended family systems. You have people you can fall back on, and it’s good. But what if you don’t fit into what is expected of you? If you’re a man, there’s support. If you’re a woman, like Yejide, there’s the expectation that you marry into a family and after a couple of years you have children, and you have a measure of power. I wanted to look at what would happen if you could choose to be what you’re supposed to be, and how the community, in trying to help you become what you think you should be, turns on you."

"Maybe she was one of those people for whom satisfaction lay only in the future, forever slightly out of reach."

"“But even then, I could trap those thoughts and keep them caged in a corner of my mind, in a place where they could not spread their wings and take over my life.”"

"I wanted to look at the subtle ways that Nigerians interacted with the Nigerian state. One of the ways we survive darkness—and there’s a lot of darkness in this book—is to find reasons to laugh. Laughter in those kinds of situations becomes essential. It’s not a luxury. It’s not just something you do because you feel like laughing. It’s been one of the ways I’ve coped myself. I wanted to bring that to this book because it would be miserable if there was no humor…"

"There is a strong view in Nigeria, as in many other cultures, that a marriage is not complete without children. I don’t agree; I’m wary of the idea that people have to have some particular functionality in order to be full members of society. I think it’s a very dangerous idea. Humans are humans and they are worthy of respect…"

"“So love is like a test, but in what sense? To what end? Who was carrying out the test? But I think I did believe that love had immense power to unearth all that was good in us, refine us and reveal to us the better versions of ourselves.”"

"“Sometimes I think we have children because we want to leave behind someone who can explain who we were to the world when we are gone.”"

"“Before you call the snail a weakling, tie your house to your back and carry it around for a week”"

"“It would take a while for me to realise that each of my children had given me as much as they took. My memories of them, bittersweet and constant, were as powerful as a physical presence. And because of that, as a bus bore me into the heart of a city I did not know, while my last child was dying in Lagos and the country was unraveling, I was not afraid because I was not alone.”"

"“But the biggest lies are often the ones we tell ourselves. I bit my tongue because I did not want to ask questions. I did not ask questions because I did not want to know the answers. It was convenient to believe my husband was trustworthy; sometimes faith is easier than doubt.”"

"To keep reading. And write, despite the convenient excuse of 'life'."

"There’s no formula to a beautiful story. But you’ll feel it. Honesty."

"that ordinary folk can prevail despite the heavily stacked odds against them."

"When We Speak of Nothing, seems to indicate a blossoming of things to come."

"evil thrived when men do nothing."

"You Do Not Have to Mention Names, No Matter Whose Ox is Gored”"

"Not scheduling your time will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make."

"Ogadinma is my love letter to the women in my life, who were married off to much older men in the 80s, when they were only teenagers. I thought it was important to tell this story because it was an opportunity for me to understand why my aunts didn’t leave their abusive husbands and how society punishes the woman who chooses to walk away from a toxic marriage. It is always so easy to ask why a woman stayed with her abuser. Ogadinma was an education for me; researching it, was a necessary education"

"I was not so confident about my writing and I needed that validation. It was sort of a confirmation that I was treading the right path. It was a gift and also a challenge, because afterward I began to pay more attention to what I do with language, how I craft my stories"

"The challenges were many, but my colleagues at home continue to soldier on, and I think they deserve all the accolades. They are powerful, and I cheer them on every opportunity I get"

"Social media is the major win here; it opened new frontiers for women’s rights conversations, and feminists have utilised the digital media to advance ground root political and cultural movements in Nigeria, for example. It is an amazing organizing tool—social media, and I think of it as the revolution the world had been waiting for"

"Do what you're supposed to do, and the rest will fall into place."

"There is a dark side to everything and many things can be true at the same time"