We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls 'You can have ambition, but not too much'. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
We teach girls shame; close your legs, cover yourself, we make them feel as though by being born female they're already guilty… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
Because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye … I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
The idea that sex is something a woman gives a man, and she loses something when she does that, which again for… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
I have my father's lopsided mouth. When I smile, my lips slope to one side. My doctor sister calls it my cerebral… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: 'You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man.' Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices, always keeping in… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share
All over the world, girls are raised to be make themselves likeable, to twist themselves into shapes that suit other people. Please… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
“What I’ve noticed being here is that many English people are in awe of America but also deeply resent it,” Obinze added. “Perfectly true,”… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
If you followed the media you'd think that everybody in Africa was starving to death, and that's not the case; so it's important to… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
“Because human beings lived then in a world in which physical strength was the most important attribute for survival; the physically stronger person was more likely to lead. And men in general are physically stronger. (There are of course many exceptions.) Today, we live in a vastly diʃerent world. The person more qualiɹed to lead is not the physically stronger… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share
To return to the books of my childhood is to yield to the strain of nostalgia that is curious about the self I once… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
I think white women need to wake up and say, 'Not all women are white,' three times in front of the mirror. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind knowing about… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
“Alexa, and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls,… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
“It was not as if he did not know what living in Lagos could do to a woman married to a young and wealthy… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
“They have the kinds of things we can eat.' An unease crept up on Ifemelu. She was comfortable here, and she wished she were not. She wished, too, that she were not so interested in this new restaurant, did not perk up, imagining fresh green salads and steamed still-firm vegetables. She loved eating all the things she had missed while… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share
If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
“But race is not biology; race is sociology. Race is not genotype; race is phenotype. Race matters because of racism. And racism is absurd… — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Copy Share Image
