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Yemisi Aribisala
22 quotes
“There are so many dissimilarities, so many unique points of difference between this one country in Africa and the rest of the world.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Her reply when asked if any readers outside of the African continent commented on noticing similarities in their own cultural customs or spiritual beliefs from those she shared in Longthroat Memoirs (30 November 2016)
“Parents have a lot of professing power over their children. Praise and admonishments are crafting tools like names.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: During a conversation when she was asked what her name; Aribisala means (17 February 2017)
“When CNN does not reciprocate with simple engagement with our hills and valleys, our romantic ideals, often only with our traumas. And everyone in the world has trauma. If you know where Naples is or Mount Vesuvius, then you are clever.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The more handling of a wide variety of food that one can manage the more open one’s mind and palate.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Investing one’s own disadvantage in words: Opening an artery onto the page, that kind of thing, apart from a love for the theme being written on.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Key to good food writing, and essays (19 April 2017)
“There are many things that happen in the human being that bypass the brain.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We don’t have a Nigerian culture of cooking and monologuing. It is coming along now with social media and Nigerian food celebrities.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If one wants to be a good essayist, one needs to connect and do it at the level of the gut, infiltrate the blood–brain barrier and lose prestige or the footing of pride. Or shall I say, you have to give something of value away to gain the investment of the reader’s time and attention.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the greatest ironies of writing is that you can write for a hundred years, write reams, but until you have something that resembles a book, you are never allowed to call yourself an author.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: INTERVIEW: Yemisi Aribisala speaks on feminism, sex, culture — and Long Throat Memoirs (4 September 2017)
“I come from a society where the default is conformity. I don’t know how to conform and I find myself putting question marks against everything”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a need to speak on something and I don’t agree with the status quo. The self-deprecation probably comes from not fitting in no matter how hard I try.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What better way to spend one’s time in the country of fringe dwellers than capitalising on one’s failures? Why wallow in failure? If you can’t beat them, or join them, then you write about them. Yes, it does end up as a kind of power and advantageous positioning in standing out from the crowd because most people don’t want fringe-dweller strength”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing any of us can do about the fact that the world is shrinking so we need to learn how to speak more languages, not fewer.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Nigeria, we have given ourselves no other option than the institutional use of the English language. We haven’t, in addition, provided the necessity and the resources of mastering the use of multiple languages. And that opportunity is so pertinent.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am writing all the time on being Nigerian and living in Nigeria but I have been accused of being stylistically un-Nigerian. My direct address of taboo objects, subjects and descriptions of people are supposedly un-Nigerian.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Attitude hardly counts at all when we are attempting to determine what foods nourish the body. A lot of intolerances and allergies as they concern individual bodies are life and death issues and toxicology issues.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pandemic has forced a balance in the nation’s perspective where food writing is concerned.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truth is you have to get on top of the reading as soon as possible and you have to keep in mind that this is the sum of people’s YEARS of hard labour, sweat and pain that you hold in your hands. Without being able to meet all the people who make that thing in your hand possible, you have to conjure up their presence, interact with every single book with great reverence.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: How she starts with her cookery books and the process in whittling them down to her longlist (8 February 2022)
“This book tells the truth about every single Nigerian. This is our food. These are our stories. This is just a slice of our humanity. I take a lot of pride in being Nigerian,”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not sure that I agree that Nigerians are conservative about sex and sexuality. That is not my experience. It has never been so in a context of rural life that I have seen and heard as a Yoruba woman speaking Yoruba, one that incorporates the use of analogies that are unequivocally sexual.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was absolutely no anger being expressed in the chapter about eggs. I believe I was expressing perplexity at the process of testing virginity with eggs, because the story was borrowed from a much older friend of mine and incorporated into my collection of egg stories. I wasn’t experientially close enough to it to be angry. If it was written with humour, it was probably because of my distance from it. I don’t think I could have infused a grain of humour if the story were mine. I believe the owners of the story don’t find it funny at all, rather quite humiliating, and perhaps to prove that, the story came from a man in the family and not a woman. I’m not sure that the women were able to put the story in words. I don’t think I would be able to tell it if it were me and mine.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe that the culture of any place is like the Sabbath – it was made for man and not the other way round. You will find accusations against me that I am not a very “cultural” person. And I have often rubbed people up the wrong way for not being respectful enough or being unwilling to follow through on what is considered traditional. I once took it quite personally when the men in a room were offered kola and because I was the only woman, I wasn’t given any. The custom was that women were not given kola. I didn’t care for the weight of the custom, I was offended even though I did not voice it. You won’t find me denying accusations of disregarding culture, so I won’t be able to say that Nigerian culture is as important to me as people are. I would rather tell people’s stories and if culture is part of the stories, then that works for me. One can’t very well deny the context of people’s lives. If I see cultural practice that is longstanding but corrosive to the soul, I won’t embrace it for the sake of being considered a real Nigerian and I certainly won’t propagate it out of a sense of obligation to tell stories.”
Yemisi Aribisala (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source