bloggers

"The real beauty is just being yourself—the good and the bad."

"And just work hard, be kind even if it’s so hard to be kind at times. It will pay off. One day you’re going to get to where you want to be. So don’t pressure yourself and live life a day at a time."

"Sometimes with the others, I really have to argue my way to get things."

"I feel like there’s no game. I don’t dress for any reason at all other than because I truly love it for myself and how it makes me feel. I feel like I can express myself and be myself."

"It’s so important to always be authentic and really stay true to yourself whether people agree with you or not."

"There's nothing more sexier than seeing a woman full of wisdom, not too sweet, not too strong, but just the right amount of spice."

"Paris is special and there’s the saying, ‘They feel like all lost artists find their way to Paris,’ and I found my way to Paris and I love Paris."

"I kinda really enjoy playing myself now, with all the flaws, with all my insecurities, with all my fears, because I feel like this is liberation for me."

"My life and how I live it. My freedom, my choices. I don’t wanna live in a box."

"Perfection is not of this world.' So try not to give into the demands of this world on how a woman should be"

"You can have all the richness in the world, but if you have no love in your life, it's not a life worth living.""

"Authenticity can be your soft power."

"If you feel like you should promote adoption, adopt yourself. (And) if you feel like no one's listening, it doesn't matter as long as you're living in it and eventually they will come. They will see and they will listen."

"Don't 'fake it till you make it.' That's garbage advice. Face it till you make it. Get up. Work hard. Fail. Stand back up. Face it again. Do a little better. Fail again. Get back up."

"It's about the simplest things in life that's very important and really makes a person happy."

"Not everything in life is dandy and beautiful."

"I can’t keep pleasing you, I can’t keep making everyone happy. I can’t keep buying everybody something just to keep a friendship."

"What's important to me right now is my life and how I live it. My freedom, my choices."

"The nice thing about being in a marriage with Chiz is that he has always respected the many seasons of my life that I'm going through."

"Even if you are married or even if you’re committed to someone or a friend or whatever, you really have to go through certain things and deal with them alone and really ponder about what you want in life."

"You can't have a perfect life. And nobody's perfect. So everything's made for a reason to make us better people and stronger."

"Happy Skin is all about natural beauty."

"Minsan (Sometimes), masakit (tt hurts) to do the right thing, but at the end, God will reward you."

"Just be exactly the way you are, may mararating kaartehan mo. I'm telling you, put those clips, overdo it if you want. Just be the girl that you are. You will make mistakes, you will rise above it, and they will make you a better person. I'm already proud of who you are and what you will be."

"Be grateful, never forget your family no matter where life takes you."

"I have to love myself first in order for me to give more love to others."

"I want them to see me as a free lady, just spread her wings and fly."

"To find out I was the first one to be charged was both amusing and shocking. I joked that I was officially declared a decent person"

"“The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouth"

"I live a good life, post pretty pictures online about food. They now want to portray me as the face of the ‘decadent west’.”"

"I am exactly the type of person Putin had in mind when he launched his speech last night. He wants to frame people like me as traitors, the fifth column,”"

"Creativity is seeing opportunity where no one else did. It is finding magic in the humdrum of the everyday and the familiar."

"There is nothing as rewarding as being inspired by my students and their work, which happens on a daily basis."

"Brittle Paper is the place where you can enjoy African literary stuff without anyone breathing down your neck, preaching to you, policing how and what and why you read. When you visit your favorite fashion or music blog, you expect to be entertained. It’s the same at Brittle Paper. We just want you to have a good time with African writing."

"As a blogger, you learn to deal with criticisms and insults."

"There is an unprecedented global interest in African writing. As a result, my readership is growing in leaps and bounds."

"African literature has not always been reader-driven. For Achebe to write with a straight face that a novelist is a teacher, you know we are dealing with a literary culture where the reader doesn’t really count for much."

"A blog is not a newspaper. If you want bare, unsullied facts, go read a newspaper."

"Literary critics might claim that they know why Shakespeare became Shakespeare, but the truth is they don’t. If you asked me how a book becomes a classic, I’d say it’s a matter for the gods."

"The life of a professor is exciting. There is never a dull moment. When I’m not teaching, I’m doing research, writing an article, or managing the administrative responsibilities that come with running a class. I find teaching literature intellectually fulfilling."

"Social media is essentially having access to people’s curated collection of what they think is the best of the best from the web. It’s a wealth of blogging content and ideas."

"Readers want to be excited about African literature, especially after decades of being told that African literature is little more than a political and cultural manual for African life."

"I keep my rejection letters gracious and appreciative. When I accept a submission, I try to say a word or two about what I find compelling about the work. So I take submissions seriously. But they can be overwhelming, and I do fall behind."

"Activism is probably too strong a word to use for it. But, I do have a politics regarding African writing in the sense that while I love British and Indian literature deeply, I also understand that African literature is the only literature I can really lay claims to or call my own."

"Contemporary readers want to fall in love with African writing. They want to enjoy it the way they enjoy African pop music and Nollywood. They want to be inspired by their favorite authors and gain access to their lives so that they can become fans. That’s precisely what we offer at Brittle Paper—the chance to consume African literature differently."

"I did not imagine it would become what it is today. I simply needed an outlet for my postgrad work. My first year as a doctoral student was one of the most intense, frustrating, but also the most beautiful moments in my life."

"At the end of the day, Africans are the only ones who can really champion African literature. It is not enough to complain that the world misunderstands us and our work. We have to take the lead in showing the world what is awesome about African literature and how it should be read."

"Blogging is all about the slant. How can you take a set of facts, rearrange them, and serve them up to readers in a way that’d make them think or react? Besides, I learned pretty quickly that you can’t please everyone"

"Blogging is a totally different beast. When I realized that my training on writing research and conference papers did not really translate into blogging, I had to learn writing all over again. That was challenging!"

"Social media and on-site interaction with readers can never be too much. It’s something that one has to keep building."