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Akwaeke Emezi

54 quotes

“I think multiple realities exist. Most colonised countries had their cosmology, their ontology, their metaphysics colonised too. They’ve been told that what was there before wasn’t real. My dad’s a pretty conservative Christian, but he’ll still get a pastor to come to the hospital [where he works as a doctor] because someone’s been working black magic. I say to him: “If you don’t believe in it, why is the pastor there?” He says: “You don’t need to believe in something for it to be real.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…I read literally everything I could get my hands on – the shampoo bottle, the cereal box. My mom didn’t let us have books at the table or we’d all have read. We didn’t always have electricity, so I read by candlelight. I read really fast too. My parents realised I’d run out of things to read and were like: “We need to buy you way more books.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…The novel is autobiographical, so I used my life as a chronological skeleton for the story, which meant revisiting a lot of things that were immensely painful. It was also a process of discovery – I had no outline for Freshwater, no idea how it was going to take shape, but it built itself as I was writing it.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…Whenever you write something biographical, everyone in your family doesn’t share the same memory. So your version of the story is not necessarily their version of the story, and part of the flexibility in having it fictionalized is that there’s not really a need to adhere to the strict facts. Because everything is colored by memory, especially when you’re pulling from childhood memories. There’s a little bit of wiggle room. This is my story of these events, as I remember it, as I experienced it…”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…When I ask myself what beauty is in my eyes, the answer is that I would prefer not to have eyes. I would prefer not to have flesh, I would prefer to be dust, free of the whole thing altogether…”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't believe that stories have to make people comfortable. Sometimes they exist to unsettle us.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Identity is not something I arrived at. It is something I continue to negotiate every day.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Writing gave me a language for experiences I had never seen reflected anywhere else.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm interested in telling stories that refuse easy explanations.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The body can carry many truths at the same time.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've learned that I don't have to make myself smaller for other people to understand me.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art has always been a place where I could imagine freedom before I could live it.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This was before Vivek, before the fire, before Chika would discover exactly how difficult it was to dig his own grave with the bones of his son.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was nothing boiling in him, just a loud and clear exhale, a weight of peace wrapping around his heart.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Osita wished, much later, that he’d told Vivek the truth then, that he was so beautiful he made the air around him dull, made Osita hard with desire. ‘Take it off,’ he snapped instead, his throat rough. ‘Put it back before they catch us.’”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That morning, she was wearing an orange cotton dress; she looked like a burning sunset, and Chika knew immediately that his story would end with her, that he would drown in her large liquid eyes and it would be the perfect way to go.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Meanwhile, Ala continued to watch her child. After all, the Ada was her hatchling, her bloodthirsty little sun, covered in translucent scales.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Part 1, Chapter 4, Page 45)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The main problem was that we were a distinct we instead of being fully and just her.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 18)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We bled a lot and Saul gave us the injection himself, but the Ada has no scar so perhaps this is a memory.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 22)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There shouldn’t be any monsters left in Lucille. The city used to have them, of course—what city didn’t? They used to be everywhere, thick in the air and oﬀices, in the streets and in people’s own homes. They used to be the police and teachers and judges and even the mayor; yeah, the mayor used to be a monster.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 1, Page 9)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bitter knew her name was heavy, but she hadn’t minded, because it was honest. That was something she’d taught Jam—that a lot of things were manageable as long as they were honest […] But Jam trusted her mother for those brutal truths, and that’s why home was the ﬁrst place she brought the books with the angels in them.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 1, Page 14)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her mother focused on her, cupping her cheek in a chalky hand. ‘Monsters don’t look like anything, doux-doux. That’s the whole point. That’s the whole problem.’”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 1, Page 18)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Angels aren't pretty pictures in old holy books, just like monsters aren't ugly pictures. It's all just people, doing hard things or doing bad things.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As Jam watched, its fur softened and it shifted its stance just a little, draining the menace away. Well, little girl, it replied, I supposed you can call me Pet.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Feyi had already decided who she wanted to be that night, so she stared right back at him, unabashed, drinking in his terra-cotta skin and dark copper beard.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 1, Page 2)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Feyi felt like a monster and a traitor, but it was fine, it had to happen.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 1, Page 5)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think we’re just figuring out how to survive a world on fire…that it’s okay to be alive.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 1, Page 6)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For a moment, there was the scream of tires and the mad chime of broken glass, the soft petals of white lilies, and a clod of dirt breaking apart in Feyi’s hand, but she brushed it all aside like smoke.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The revolution needs artists, just like it needs healers and storytellers, just like it needs the organizers and protesters. It's all one big organism working together.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 5, Page 56)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He raised his head as Bitter emerged from the office, and his face broke into a huge smile. It made the blood rush to Bitter's face, how openly Aloe showed his pleasure at her presence. Sometimes she wondered how he found the courage to flash emotions as if no one could hurt him with them.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 4, Page 43)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are allowed to feel safe, " Miss Virtue said. Bitter blinked, the tears heated her eyes because the words were so simple, yet so heavy with permission.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 4, Page 42)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...the world gotta burn before we can build a new one. We just got different ideas about what kinda fire we need.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 13, Page 138)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The foster parents had said that she would end up nowhere, then you could make up wherever you wanted to be, you could make it real. You could, for example, paint it into existence.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Chapter 7, Page 76)”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You could be so intimate, so familiar with someone’s skin and flesh and spirit, only to wake up one day and find that it had receded from you, suddenly, like a tide rushing back out into the sea, leaving you with dissolving foam and a damp heart.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She had tried explaining it so many times, but he was hung up on the woman she used to be, and she was disappointed in the man he still was.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maybe she should have known that if he didn’t love God the way she did, then he couldn’t have been the real answer to her prayers. This could have all been a false faith, and now her eyes were being torn open. If there was gratitude to give God for that clarity, that release from a lie, Aima couldn’t quite find it in her to send it up. Right now, she didn’t want to talk to God. All she had was a plate full of bitter silence.”
Akwaeke Emezi (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source