“ … there’s a difference between having no one because you’ve chosen it and having no one because everyone has been taken away. Helen Oyeyemi
“ In Egypt, like everywhere, the land is made to fit the sky; but here it is more so. Here it is possible to say, “This is land," and point, and “This is sky," and point, but the eyes can’t discover the… Helen Oyeyemi
“ Aside from infrequent comments ("Cheer up, love," or "It's not Hallo'ween"), no one wondered why a teenager was dressed up as a chic governess. Sylvie approved of Miri, even at the same time as she wa… Helen Oyeyemi
“ I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don't have names. Helen Oyeyemi
“ I would like to have nothing to do with you for hours on end and then come back and find you, come back with things I’ve thought and found all on my own— on my own, not through you. Helen Oyeyemi
“ A library at night is full of sounds: the unread books can't stand it any longer and announce their contents, some boasting, some shy, some devious. Helen Oyeyemi
“ First you try to find a reason, try to understand what you've done so wrong so you can be sure not to do it anymore. After that you look for signs of a Jekyll and Hyde situation, the good and the bad… Helen Oyeyemi
“ School is one long illness with symptoms that switch every five minutes so you think it's getting better or worse. But really it's the same thing for years and years. Helen Oyeyemi
“ I think her favorite thing about our . . . collaboration was her actor and musician friends rubbing shoulders with my academic colleagues, she liked the atmosphere of challenge, the way anything that… Helen Oyeyemi
“ I collected pictures and I drew pictures and I looked at the pictures by myself. And because no one else ever saw them, the pictures were perfect and true. They were alive. Helen Oyeyemi
“ Whenever they were together they couldn't let sixty of their minutes pass without asking each other what time it was; as if time was a volatile currency that they either possessed or did not possess,… Helen Oyeyemi
“ I've come to think that there's an age beyond which it is impossible to lift a child from the pervading marinade of an original country, pat them down with a paper napkin and then deep-fry them in ano… Helen Oyeyemi
“ She encouraged herself to see her very small presence in the world as a good thing, a power, something that a hero might possess. Helen Oyeyemi
“ No, this is pretty much the same version I read," I said, because it felt too damn late to back down. I imagine that from time to time some similar situation has led governments to declare war." pg.57 Helen Oyeyemi
“ Life has changed a lot, you know. You didn't used to get all this food inside food inside food when I was a girl. The other day I was eating a mushroom and found it had been stuffed with prawns. I've… Helen Oyeyemi
“ Because he says he can't stand you and you act like you can't stand him, and whenever a man and a woman behave like that toward each other, it usually means something's going on. Helen Oyeyemi
“ What do you want, Mary Foxe? My husband?" “I believe in him," she said slowly. I wondered if she’d ever told him that, and if so, what he had to say about it. Someone you made up turns around and tell… Helen Oyeyemi
“ This girl had been looking on with her hair hanging over her face, only partly hiding a cruel-looking scar; her eyes shone with hatred. Not necessarily hatred of your father or of puppets or the other… Helen Oyeyemi
“ But also . . . I have plenty of people around me to talk to, and no one to be honest with. Helen Oyeyemi
“ The wooden devil got a good laugh out of the ones who passed by, though. They were so funny she couldn't even feel sorry for them. They tried so hard to keep track of time. Whenever they were together… Helen Oyeyemi
