Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“For me, feminism is always contextual.”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I'm a nice middle-class girl.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Stories matter. Many stories matter.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You deserve to take up space.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I must have been an annoying child.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The higher you go, the fewer women there are.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Evil is tolerable if purged of coarseness.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“she always chose peace over truth,”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“I knew what I wanted to run to. But it didn’t exist, so I didn’t leave.”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“There were emotions she wanted to hold in the palm of her hand that were simply no longer there.”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“He thought the police would have to do better; everyone knew the cult boys had more modern guns”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I have many problems in my life, but I don't think that identity is one of them.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Show a people as one thing, only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

There has always been a strange dissonance between the public and the private in Nigeria.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Feminist: A person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“He had discovered that grief did not dim with time; it was instead a volatile state of being.”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Each time he suggested they get married, she said no. They were too happy, precariously so, and she wanted to guard that…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“[ifemelu] did not think so, but she was no longer sure. She was no longer sure what was new in Lagos and…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“We did not scale the rod because we believed we could, we scaled it because we were terrified that we couldn't.”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Philadelphia had the musty scent of history. New Haven smelled of neglect. Baltimore smelled of brine, and Brooklyn of sun-warmed garbage. But…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“feminism. If anything, it makes us see the extent of the problem, the successful reach of patriarchy. It shows us, too, that…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

When I go back home now, when I go back to Nigeria now, I get off the plane in Lagos and I…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Ojiugo often asked, 'But are they treating you well? Are they treating you well?' as though the treatment was what mattered, rather…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

When it comes to dressing well, American culture is so self-fulfilled that it has not only disregarded this courtesy of self-presentation, but…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“It puzzled her, the ability of romantic love to mutate, how quickly a loved one could become a stranger. Where did the…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

He was making her feel small and absurdly petulant and, worse yet, she suspected he was right. She always suspected he was…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The novels I love, the ones I remember, the ones I re-read, have an empathetic human quality, or 'emotional truth'. This quality…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“The biggest problem in this country is not corruption. The problem is that there are many qualified people who are not where…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“On the day Princess Diana died, a group of students had gathered before a lecture, talking about what they had heard on…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Understanding America for the Non-American Black: Thoughts on the Special White Friend One great gift for the Zipped-Up Negro is The White…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Some people ask: "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?"…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Alexa and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Her blog was doing well, with thousands of unique visitors each month, and she was earning good speaking fees, and she had…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“If the justification for controlling women's bodies were about women themselves, then it would be understandable. If, for example, the reason was…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are the thin-lipped mean white people in…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Pasamos demasiado tiempo enseñando a las niñas a preocuparse por lo que piensen de ellas los chicos. Y, sin embargo, con ellos…

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie