Writer Quotes by Helen Oyeyemi

19 Writer quotes by Helen Oyeyemi

Helen Oyeyemi’s reflections on the craft feel like stepping into a house of shifting rooms—her words tease the boundaries of genre, urging you to let curiosity and surprise lead the narrative.

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I love character and voice, and my favourite books have been the ones in which I've become completely absorbed.

Helen Oyeyemi

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I do tend to feel more connected to dead writers, perhaps because they have finished their work.

Helen Oyeyemi

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I don't have a style. I just try to write what the story demands.

Helen Oyeyemi

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I dont have a style. I just try to write what the story demands.

Helen Oyeyemi

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I think, basically, what I'm good for is reading - a lot.

Helen Oyeyemi

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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

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Years ago a friend and fellow writer, Nick Antosca, once made a remark about it being best not to threaten, but to…

Helen Oyeyemi

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“Books. I am attracted and repelled; books are conversations that are not addressed to me and I want to sneak up and…

Helen Oyeyemi

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“I was born, and then I was quietly resentful of that fact for a few years...but then I went to a library…

Helen Oyeyemi

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“Daphne came in with her arms full of books, and her eyes blazing like two poisoned moons. "How'd you like the mess…

Helen Oyeyemi

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I always wanted to be a writer! But I wanted to do other things, too - be a psychologist, a librarian, et…

Helen Oyeyemi

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“I like to hear the marching of typewriter keys, the shudder of the space bar, the metallic ding at the end of…

Helen Oyeyemi

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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…

Helen Oyeyemi

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I don't think my writing has much to do with my age. For me, my biography is more about what I was…

Helen Oyeyemi

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The way 'The Icarus Girl' came about was by me just basically bragging it with a literary agent and telling him I'd…

Helen Oyeyemi

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I think, basically, what I'm good for is reading - a lot. I think I'll always be more of a reader than…

Helen Oyeyemi

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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

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I do love Shirley Jackson, but I don't deserve to be named in connection with her. I remember reading 'The Haunting of…

Helen Oyeyemi

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The first book I really loved was 'Little Women' - I'd have given anything for Beth to have been allowed to live;…

Helen Oyeyemi

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More by Helen Oyeyemi

“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

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“Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.”

Helen Oyeyemi

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I do tend to feel more connected to dead writers, perhaps because they have finished their work.

Helen Oyeyemi

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“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

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“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

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“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

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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

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“I think her favorite thing about our . . . collaboration was her actor and musician friends rubbing shoulders with my academic colleagues, she…

Helen Oyeyemi

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“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

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“It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be”

Helen Oyeyemi

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“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

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“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

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The more forcibly I'm made aware of the fact that I'll never be the kind of storyteller I most admire, the less I'll be…

Helen Oyeyemi

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The girl was lighter without her heart. She danced barefoot on the hot roads, and her feet were not cut by the glass or…

Helen Oyeyemi

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“So her missing person's poster features a girl with long hair and dreamy eyes that don't see the fracture coming.”

Helen Oyeyemi

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