Her friend is having a party, this Russian girl, they became friends because they have the same violin tutor. The first time I met the girl’s mother, I think she was wearing something illegal, like th...
He was now a husband and father, and they had not been in touch in years, yet she could not pretend that he was not a part of her homesickness, or that she did not often think of him, sifting through...
He was making her feel small and absurdly petulant and, worse yet, she suspected he was right. She always suspected he was right. For a brief irrational moment, she wished she could walk away from him...
He was left-leaning and well-meaning, crippled by his acknowledgement of his own many privileges. He never allowed himself to have an opinion. 'Yes, I see what you mean,' he said often.
He was always thinking of what else to do and she told him that it was rare for her, because she had grown up not doing, but being.
He was already looking at their relationship through the lens of the past tense.
He wanted to know about day-to-day life in America, what people ate and what consumed them, what shamed them and what attracted them, but he read novel after novel and was disappointed:
He told me that people were saying my novel was feminist, and his advice to me—he was shaking his head sadly as he spoke—was that I should never call myself a feminist since feminists are women who ar...
He thinks we should complicate it, so it's not race alone...'Nuance' means keep people comfortable so everyone is free to think of themselves as individuals and everyone got where they are because of...
He taught ideas of nuance and complexity in his classes and yet he was asking her for a single reason, the cause. But she had not had a bold epiphany and there was no cause; it was simply that layer a...
He said, ‘Ifemelu is a fine babe but she is too much trouble. She can argue. She can talk. She never agrees. But Ginika is just a sweet girl.’ He paused, then added, He didn’t know that was exactly w...
He said, 'Ifemelu is a fine babe bu she is too much trouble. She can argue. She can talk. She never agrees. But Ginika is just a sweet gil.' He paused, then added, He didn't know that was exactly what...
He said see as if it meant something more than what one did with one's eyes.
He missed her, a longing that tore deep into him. He resented her. He wondered endlessly what might have happened. He changed, curled more inwardly into himself. He was, by turns, inflamed by anger, t...
He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size.
He looked people in the eye not because he was interested in them but because he knew it made them feel that he was interested in them.
He had to be an academic, but not in the humanities or he would be more self-conscious.
He had discovered that grief did not dim with time; it was instead a volatile state of being.
He believed in good omens and positive thoughts and happy endings to films, a trouble-free belief, because he had not considered them deeply before choosing to believe; he just simply believed.
Había algo humillantemente público y carente de dignidad en ese lugar, en ese espacio abierto con tantas mesas y tanta comida.