Home > Author > Imbolo Mbue
121 " Jende shook his head. “Our people say no condition is permanent, Mr. Edwards. Good times must come to an end, just like bad times, whether we want it or not.” “Indeed,” Clark said. “I’m just glad we can part as friends. "
― Imbolo Mbue , Behold the Dreamers
122 " Our grandfathers, however, had no interest in losing ownership of their lives—every one of them had turned down Pexton’s offer and returned to the thrill of killing for food as trees were felled all over the valley to make room for the oil field and pipelines and Gardens. "
― Imbolo Mbue , How Beautiful We Were
123 " Neni looked at Betty and her gap tooth that divided her mouth into two equally beautiful halves. The woman "
124 " Ah, you women,” Jende said. “You worry too much. Why do you want to know all of a man’s business, eh? I don’t want to know all of your business. Sometimes I hear you talking to your friends on the phone and I don’t even want to hear what you’re saying to them. "
125 " He’s perfect for me. Every day with him is as if the world has conspired to make me happy. "
126 " It was for the boundless opportunities they would be denied, the kind of future she was almost denied in her father’s house. She was going to fight for her children, and for herself, "
127 " But seriously,” Jende said, “women have to learn to be more trusting. They have to trust their husbands that they know what they’re doing. "
128 " You say this country don pass you, eh? I believe you. Sometimes this country pass me, too. America can be hell, I know. Man nova see suffer until the day ei enter America, make I tell you. "
129 " He loved her so much (he wouldn’t have traded her even for an American passport), but "
130 " I’m not ashamed of wanting many things in life. Tomorrow when my daughter grows up I will tell her to want whatever she wants, the same thing I will tell my son. "
131 " Neni had wanted to yell back at her mother and tell her to stop justifying her husband acting as if his unhappiness was everyone’s fault. "
132 " Let me put this another way: Are you happy with who you’re becoming? "
133 " She worried that she might have too little in common with her friends, being that she was now so different from them, being that she had tasted a different kind of life and been transformed positively and negatively in so many different ways, being that life had expanded and contracted her in ways they could never imagine. "
134 " They had called an abomination upon their land by worshipping idols and enslaving their fellow humans, all so they could live in splendor. They had chosen riches over righteousness, rapaciousness over justice. The Americans had done no such thing. "
135 " She’d wanted to scream at her for staying married to an angry man who scolded her in front of her children, "
136 " it’s just hard for anyone to know where he’s going to end up. "
137 " So she had dried her eyes and decided on that day that there was one thing she wanted in a man above all else: loyalty. And that was the one thing Jende was best at, above all other men she’d ever known: keeping his promises. "
138 " Why would anyone want to stand in a crowded place for hours, screaming at the top of their voice to chat with a friend, when they "
139 " These purchases were what she would use to prove to the loose women of Limbe that she was not at their level. "
140 " Maybe a woman carrying a baby should know when to stop talking. "