Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Buchi Emecheta
95 quotes
“In all my novels… I deal with the many problems and prejudices which exist for Black people in Britain today.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe it is important to speak to your readers in person... to enable people to have a whole picture of me; I have to both write and speak. I view my role as a writer and also as an oral communicator.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I work toward the liberation of women but I'm not a feminist. I'm just a woman.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On rejecting being called a feminist (as quoted in “Buchi Emecheta: Nigerian author who championed girls dies aged 72” in BBC News; 2017 Jan 26)
“Black women all over the world should re-unite and re-examine the way history has portrayed us.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On how Black women should challenge historical representations (as quoted in “Buchi Emecheta: Nigerian author who championed girls dies aged 72” in BBC News in BBC News; 2017 Jan 26)
“But who made the law that we should not hope in our daughters? We, women, subscribe to that law more than anyone. Until we change all this, it is still a man's world, which women will always help to build.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Few things are as bad as a guilty conscience.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Being a woman writer, I would be deceiving myself if I said I write completely through the eye of a man. There’s nothing bad in it, but that does not make me a feminist writer. I hate that name. The tag is from the Western world – like we are called the Third World.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first book I wrote was The Bride Price which was a romantic book, but my husband burnt the book when he saw it. I was the typical African woman, I’d done this privately, I wanted him to look at it, approve it and he said he wouldn’t read it.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am a woman and a woman of Africa. I am a daughter of Nigeria and if she is in shame, I shall stay and mourn with her in shame.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, I don't know. I think it's really left for the critics. As a writer, you just write books, and then the critics start analyzing what it ought to do or what ought to have been put in it, which doesn't enter the writer's mind [when she's writing].”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most people in Nigeria speak: English; even though it is an alien language we speak it. You can't write in a Nigerian language, because Nigeria has something like 249 languages. If you write in one, you just write to a small group of people.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, I'm still writing about African women. In the past I've put in men's views, DoubJe Yoke, and parts of Destination Biafra..to show that I can do that, but I feel it's no longer necessary. I'm not challenging the male writers. I have enough to write about in my own field. My backdrop may shift slightly, from real Africa to the African Diaspora. But I think I'll still be seeing everything through the eyes of women.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Women and Empowerment: An Interview with Buchi Emecheta 1988
“Women are capable of living for so many other reasons than men”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Emecheta states in an interview with Julie Holmes in The Voice July 9, 1996.
“When has it ever been a virtue to be rich in wealth and poor in people?' The relatives nodded. They understood her very well- why have heaven an earth when you have no one to share it with?”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“1975 was International Women's Year. I had never heard the word 'feminism' before then. I was writing my books from the experiences of my own life and from watching and studying the lives of those around me in general. I did not know that writing the way I was, was putting me into a special category.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Writers simply have to write, and not worry so much about what people think, because public opinion is such a difficult horse to ride.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Living entirely off writing is a precarious existence and money is always short, bit with careful management and planning I found I could keep my head and those of my family, through God's grace, above water.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Relatives watching wanted and expected me to break down and cry, thereby devaluing my inner sorrow.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When people are not educated enough for the job market, it is like a time bomb ticking away which could explode in the streets.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I thought at one time I would be thrown out. But I was not.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An uneducated person has little chance of happiness.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want to leave my boring job because I want to write, because I want to catch up with goings on in the theatre, because I want to travel and because I want to be with my family.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The uneducated man has no such choices. Once he has lost his boring job, he feels he's lost his life. That is unfair.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody’s appendage? she prayed desperately.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Ibuza sons help their father more than they help their mother. A mother's joy is only in the name. She worries over them, looks after them when they are small; but in the actual help on the farm, the upholding of the family name, all belong to the father.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody's appendage? ... when will I be free?”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nnaife did not realise that Dr Meers's laughter was inspired by that type of wickedness that reduces any man, white or black, intelligent or not, to a new low; lower than the basest of animals, for animals at least respected each other's feelings, each other's dignity.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On her way back to their room, it occurred to Nnu Ego that she was a prisoner, imprisoned by her love for her children, imprisoned by her role as the senior wife. She was not even expected to demand more money for her family; that was considered below the standard expected of a woman in her position. It was not fair, she felt, the way men cleverly used a woman’s sense of responsability to actually enslave her. They knew that the traditional wife like herself would never dream of leaving her children.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man is never ugly.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't blame anyone for what has happened to your father. Things have changed drastically since the days of his own youth,but he has refused to see the changes...The fact is that parents get only reflected glory from their children nowadays,whereas your father has invested in all of you, just as his father invested in him so that he could help on the farm. Your father forgot that he himself left the family farm to come to this place.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every woman should be free to live the life she chooses.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fear of everybody was that the man might give in and say, "After all, it's her life." However a thing like that is not permitted in Nigeria; you are simply not allowed to commit suicide in peace, because everyone is responsible for the other person. Foreigners may call us a nation of busybodies, but to us, an individual's life belongs to the community and not just to him or her.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet the more I think about it the more I realise that we women set impossible standards for ourselves.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I cannot live up to your standards.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some parents, especially those who have many children from different wives, may reject a bad son, a master may reject a wicked servant, a wife may go so far as to abandon a bad husband, but a mother can never, never reject her son. If he is convicted, she will be condemned alongside him.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The more I think about it, the more I realize that we, women, set impossible models for ourselves. That we make life intolerable for each other. I can't live up to our role models, older wife. That’s why I need to create my own.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At home in Nigeria, all a mother had to do for a baby was wash and feed him and, if he was fidgety, strap him onto her back and carry on with her work while that baby slept.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The leaves were still on the trees but were becoming dry, perched like birds ready to fly off.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dreams soon assume substance”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Adah could not stop thinking about her discovery that the whites were just as fallible as everyone else. There were bad whites and good whites, just as there were bad blacks and good blacks! Why then did they claim to be superior?”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She did not delude herself into expecting Francis to love her. He had never been taught how to love, but had an arresting way of looking pleased at Adah's achievements.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marriage is lovely when it works, but if it does not, should one condemn oneself ? I stopped feeling guilty for being me.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She had gambled with marriage, just like most people, but she had gambled unluckily and had lost.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The concept of whiteness could cover a multitude of sins.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Typical Igbo psychology; men never do wrong, only the women; they have to beg for forgiveness, because they are bought, paid for and must remain like that, silent, obedient slaves.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She, who only a few months previously would have accepted nothing but the best, had by now been conditioned to expect inferior things. She was now learning to suspect anything beautiful and pure. Those things were for the whites, not the blacks.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must know, my dear young lady, that in Lagos you may be a million publicity officers for the Americans; you may be earning a million pounds a day; you may have hundreds of servants: you may be living like an elite, but the day you land in England, you are a second-class citizen.”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Francis, p. 39)”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(Narrator, p. 53)”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Did she not feel totally fulfilled when she had completed the manuscript, just as if it were another baby she had had?”
Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source