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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie QUOTES

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie QUOTES

1 " Teach her that the idea of 'gender roles' is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl.
'Because you are a girl' is never reason for anything.
Ever. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

2 " Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Americanah

3 " The truth has become an insult. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Half of a Yellow Sun

4 " The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle? "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Purple Hibiscus

5 " You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?” Aunty Ifeka said. “Your life belongs to you and you alone. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Half of a Yellow Sun

6 " At some point I was a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men and Who Likes to Wear Lip Gloss and High Heels for Herself and Not For Men. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , We Should All Be Feminists

7 " Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , We Should All Be Feminists

8 " We have a world full of women who are unable to exhale fully because they have for so long been conditioned to fold themselves into shapes to make themselves likeable. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

9 " Feminism and femininity are not mutually exclusive. It is misogynistic to suggest that they are. Sadly, women have learned to be ashamed and apologetic about pursuits that are seen as traditionally female, such as fashion and makeup. But our society does not expect men to feel ashamed of pursuits considered generally male - sports cars, certain professional sports. In the same way, men's grooming is never suspect in the way women's grooming is - a well-dressed man does not worry that, because he is dressed well, certain assumptions might be made about his intelligence, his ability, or his seriousness. A woman, on the other hand, is always aware of how a bright lipstick or a carefully-put-together outfit might very well make others assume her to be frivolous. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

10 " Some people will say, “Oh, but women have the real power, bottom power.” And for non-Nigerians, “bottom power” is an expression in which I suppose means something like a woman who uses her sexuality to get favors from men. But “bottom power” is not power at all. Bottom power means that a woman simply has a good root to tap into, from time to time, somebody else’s power. And then of course we have to wonder when that somebody else is in a bad mood, or sick, or impotent. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

11 " We do not just risk repeating history if we sweep it under the carpet, we also risk being myopic about our present. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

12 " I am just as human as the man. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , We Should All Be Feminists

13 " Each time he suggested they get married, she said no. They were too happy, precariously so, and she wanted to guard that bond; she feared that marriage would flatten it into a prosaic partnership. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Half of a Yellow Sun

14 " Marriage can be a good thing, a source of joy, love, and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, but we don’t teach boys to do the same? "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , We Should All Be Feminists

15 " Sometimes life begins when the marriage ends "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Purple Hibiscus

16 " Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Americanah

17 " Sometimes she worried that she was too happy. . . And her joy would become a restless thing, flapping its wings inside her, as though looking for an opening to fly away. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Americanah

18 " If we don't place the straitjacket of gender roles on young children, we give them space to reach their full potential. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

19 " The Tanzanian told her that all fiction was therapy, some sort of therapy, no matter what anybody said. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ,

20 " We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. "

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , We Should All Be Feminists