"In my words, the story is a short drink, but capable of startling you for hours, something like a little shot of tequila in the middle of a game that we have voluntarily joined."

"It is often said that children do not read. Well, I'd say that if adults don't start reading, it's not fair to accuse little ones of not reading. They must see us with a book in our hands."

"In the end, finding the Truth will always be tiring in a world full of appearances."

"Why walk with half measures, animals know much more than people, above all because they feel more freely than most of these and, therefore, as Kafka says, they are possessors of all the knowledge about this life. They are just too humble to show it off."

"For a writer, life must be the focus that death illuminates daily."

"I think that living only from writing is a privilege, in economic terms, that only some writers have achieved and to which, probably, all authors aspire: a difficult goal that is not impossible."

"The memory is like the wind, sometimes warm, gentle and prone to a smile, sometimes violent, merciless and unwelcome. The memory looks like the wind, period, and that explains why the wind can bring with it the memory."

"Who today asks your poem where the country is going?"

"No one said this would be easy (...) Writing is not. Do not forget that the pen is the tool, yes, but art must be born from you, from your readings..."

"Literary art feeds on the fragility of life."

"Every literary work is a political act—not in the pamphleteering sense, which has done so much harm to art, but in that intimate—and sometimes devastating—way in which a phrase, an image, a character can shake the reader enough to make them doubt their own certainties."

"That's the writer's game: everything is about us."

"It's payday, reason enough for customers to cram every space in the venue looking for a beer. Today there is money ergo there is drink. Bibere ergosum."

"God? Christ. The Virgin. This Guadalajara is so rich in cathedrals, so rich in appearances, that I am sure that these are the true foundations of the city and its misfortune: the rain washes away the sin of this world..."

"The closest thing to purgatory is a government agency, only the first does not exist and the second is very real."

"What can a woman do? You say everyday. In the end, a woman does something, and even then still you look down on women."

"There is no problem in this world that cannot be solved."

"There was nothing in me when I was in school that made me feel I was going to be a writer. It was one of those things that just happened. I didn’t have the ambition to say, “Oh, Flora, you are going to be a writer, so work towards it"

"As Adiewere and Efuru were eating, a troop of children with shining tummies in front of them were seen approaching. "These children are just in time. The way they time themselves is admirable."

"When Efuru went home, Ajanupu could not help admiring her character. "She is a woman among women. I like the way she is carrying her burden. She still loves that imbecile husband of hers and she is going in search of him."

"The novel captures the ongoing changes in Nigerian society where women strive for (economic) independence and personal happiness and growth rather than a life within the boundaries of an outdated tradition. In stressing the economic independence of women, Nwapa reminded me of Virginia Woolf and her essay “A Room Of One’s Own”."

"Feminism was a politics of empowerment that assumed that a woman was a victim. I saw feminism as a politics that had to first position women as victims so that it can then empower them."

"Women have always been powerful and striven to achieve financial independence. I wanted a politics that fought for expanding and nurturing the power that women already had. It is not that I believed that there was no such thing as gender inequality. I just did not want to see a woman as a victim but as someone who was always enterprising and looking for ways to undermine the systems of power that tried to put her down."

"Contrary to Woolf, who I personally always found to be overly dramatic and elitist, and, thus, exclusive, in her viewpoints and demands to literature and feminism, Nwapa did not think of herself as a feminist. At the same time, she is crucially aware of the misrepresentation of women in literature by fellow male authors who tend to display women as prostitutes or mischievous creatures, all of which Nwapa counteracts in her own writing by displaying women as positive, independent and real as they are."

"I am sure you will like this gin. Nwabuzo had it buried in the ground last year when there was rumour that policemen were sent to search her house. When the policemen left, finding nothing, Nwabuzo was still afraid and left it in the ground. A week later, she fell ill and was rushed to the hospital where she remained for six months. She came back only a week ago. So the gin is a very good one."

"They did not see the reason why Adizua should not marry another woman since according to them two men do not live together. To them Efuru was a man, since she could not reproduce."

"If I am considered the doyenne of African female writers, the glory goes to the oral historians and griottes who mesmerized me with stories about the mystical powers of Ogbuide, the mother of the lake, my family members of industrious women and men who served as role models, as well as my penchant for service and the pursuit of excellence."

"We should, I think, proceed to enquire into what we mean by ideals - or rather, to examine, critically, the nature of those acts which to us appear to be outward manifestations of idealisms."

"So, Lord, please teach me the the conscience of a child, beauty of his innocence, and the forgiveness of his heart."

"We are well, Efuru replied. It is only hunger. It is good that it is only hunger. Good health is what we pray for."

"We may differ in the language we speak, yet we all remain children of the land."

"I don’t think that I’m a radical feminist,”"

"...So, have faith if you will, yet leave not for tomorrow what can be done today."

"...therefore, though I strive to be the best I can, I am in no competition with anyone, for every traveler has a pace."

"Efuru told him that she would drown herself in the lake if he did not marry her. Adizua told her he loved her very much and that even the dust she trod on meant something to him."

"I don’t even accept that I’m a feminist. I accept that I’m an ordinary woman who is writing about what she knows. I try to project the image of women positively."

"We are all the same; our seeming differences only rise from the choices we make and the perception we choose"

"It is not the thing that we fear the most that crushes us but that which we have failed to fear."

"Determination makes one impervious to pain."

"Never give up if your heart and your head tell you are right. People can disappoint you, but your heart and your head will never. Make them your best friends."

"People who are quick to pay compliments, baby-baby, are also quick to withdraw them."

"Blood is thicker than water, you hear. Ha! Let me tell you, some blood flows thinner. And some water is as thick as sludge."

"Sometimes in life, we have to take a stand. It does not help to sit on the fence, even if we have to hurt the people we love-love. That is what I want you to remember. If I have taught you anything, I want it to be that."

"S is for sins. What is a sin? At Catechism, she was taught to repeat, 'Sin is an offence against reason, truth and right conscience.' But she could not tell what sins she was supposed to be atoning for. What were her mother's sins? Mma swallowed all the words she wanted to say and started eating the food she no longer tasted."

"S is for sir. It's what you called your father if you'd never lived with him. If you did not know where his medication box was. If you did not even know what he was taking medication for. No, sir. Yes, sir. S is for strangers multiplied by five. Ten eyes watching her, sizing her up, maybe wondering what she was doing there. What was she doing here? And all this talk of tradition, which had pushed her mother away in the first place. Roll. Dip. Swallow. She had met her father."

"You children, you forget that no matter how high the okra tree grows, it's never mightier than the hand that planted it."

"There is no Muslim Nigeria and no Christian Nigeria. There is only one indivisible Nigeria. Kaduna belongs to all Nigerians. No religion endorses violence or gratuitous cruelty. Regrettably, some undesirable elements have incited these ugly clashes and those elements will be fished out and properly punished."