You don’t return people’s smiles—it’s perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains. — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
I was a real mess at school. I got a bit of a reputation for being the weird girl: the girl who'd… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
Imagine having a mother who worries that you read too much. The question is, what is it that's supposed to happen to… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
So many times I've encountered people who are just kind of like, 'Yeah, Nigeria,' and, you know, thump their chest and seem… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
Once you let people know anything about what you think, that's it, you're dead. Then they'll be jumping about in your mind,… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
The way that people feel changes everything. Feelings are forces. They cause us to time travel. And to leave ourselves, to leave… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
Solitary people, these book lovers. I think it's swell that there are people you don't have to worry about when you don't… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
I've always felt happy in my own company. It's only when I get around other people that things get sticky. — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“I think it's swell that there are people you don't have to worry about when you don't see them for a long… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
A few people have tried to make me see that my writing isn't quite their thing by saying to me: 'What about… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
Like every girl, I only need to look up and a little to the right of me to see the hysteria that… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“Juju is not enough to protect you. Everything you have I will turn against you. I'll turn sugar bitter for you. I'll take your… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
I do tend to feel more connected to dead writers, perhaps because they have finished their work. — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“People don’t make too much money around here, but what comes with that is a different definition of what it means to be well-off.… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“He looked honored, extraordinarily honored, seeming to care for that which tore his flesh than he did for the flesh itself, embracing the blade… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“White-flowered shrubs thickened around her and so did sleep; it directed her limbs. Lie down now, sleep said sweetly. Lie down. These are the… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
I don't despise 'Don Quixote,' but it is a book I don't... get. I'll have to come back it. Maybe there'll be a gateway… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“I think her favorite thing about our . . . collaboration was her actor and musician friends rubbing shoulders with my academic colleagues, she… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“After half an hour the Senora emerged, short of breath, with flushed cheeks....as uf she'd been seized and shaken like a faulty thermometer.” — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be” — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“Pops says he loves me just the way I am, but not everyone in the world is like my father. Maman, for example. A… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but more often than not. With girls, Why… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
