“Books. I am attracted and repelled; books are conversations that are not addressed to me and I want to sneak up and… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“It was the dread that comes about when you are allowed to have something that seems costly and yet you're not asked… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
I wish there was someone I could have written to after that, someone I could have written to explain how awful it… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
I tend to prioritize emotional realism above the known laws of time and space, and when you do that, it's inevitable that… — 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
“With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but more often than not. With… — Helen Oyeyemi Boys Copy Share Image
“So Mr. Pizarsky had been a poet? That was how he’d said it: “I was a poet." As if the poet had… — Helen Oyeyemi Personalities Copy Share Image
If you should find yourself in a place that is indifferent to you and there is someone there that your spirit stretches… — Helen Oyeyemi Finding yourself Copy Share Image
“Bisi, how could you, now? You know that when you pray, you are heard, if not by God, then by yourself. When… — Helen Oyeyemi Pray Copy Share Image
Authors I've longed to write like - but realize I actually can't even begin to - include Poe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kafka,… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“Fate is what it was. Yes, fate that the book I had with me was a novel written by my great-grandfather, a… — Helen Oyeyemi Books Copy Share Image
“As it is he hears voices without form; they sing and sing, as they have from the beginning and will continue until… — Helen Oyeyemi Life Copy Share Image
“A house of stone and glass and iron should be stark and sober, a watchtower from which a benevolent guard is kept… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“There are people who are drawn to secrets as ants are to jam. Fausta's one of them. She searches out all things… — Helen Oyeyemi Heart beat Copy Share Image
“I'm not lying to you," she said, shaking her head. "I really can't do it." "You can and you must," they snapped.… — Helen Oyeyemi Story Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“A rustle handle turning, or a wooden door forced open until its hinges buckle, or to me, to me it was the… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“Safiye looked as if she was formed of fire herself, particles of flame dancing the flesh of her arm into existence. That… — Helen Oyeyemi Fire Copy Share Image
“We’re friendly toward strangers because of a general belief (I don’t know where it comes from) that we’re born strangers and that… — Helen Oyeyemi Faith 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 Being Copy Share Image
Wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. The poem tells me it’s no big deal that I’m not… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“He was talented, at an age when other boys were horrible kissers, just horrible and sloppy. I was fourteen then, and he… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“Sometimes I do what I say I’m going to do, but more often I don’t. It’s a failing. The least of my… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
The way I live now is that I only write, which means that I'm very poor but very happy. Everything in my… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
The more forcibly I'm made aware of the fact that I'll never be the kind of storyteller I most admire, the less… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“I watched wealthy men and their wives and dates dancing and playing cards and making deals: I will admire you exactly as… — Helen Oyeyemi Money Copy Share Image
The language of [Catholic] mysticism - its repeated attempts to lay consciousness itself bare and speak all the intensely opposing yet interconnected… — Helen Oyeyemi Catholic Copy Share Image
“I’ve always had a hard time figuring out what the moral of a story is supposed to be, and she was bound… — Helen Oyeyemi College Copy Share Image
“When the hysteric saw what the suffragists had done--the way that en masse they'd turned starvation onto its side--she must have been… — Helen Oyeyemi Communication Copy Share Image
“I told her that magic spells only work until the person under the spell is really and honestly tired of it. It… — Helen Oyeyemi Magic Copy Share Image
“While waiting for her to phone me at school I'd feel seconds bursting inside me and leaving clouds. That won't come again—it… — Helen Oyeyemi Closeness Copy Share Image
“If you've...got someone within ten minutes' walk who can make you laugh and someone else within a five-minute walk who can help… — Helen Oyeyemi Millionaire Copy Share Image
Fairy tales, because they have a very clear structure, are easier to interfere with. Also they have this really weird logic: 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… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“… there’s a difference between having no one because you’ve chosen it and having no one because everyone has been taken away.” — Helen Oyeyemi Difference Copy Share Image
“I think they must have recognized something in each other, some poorly concealed intensity that other people find nerve-racking.” — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“Jess couldn't stop spitting out words, because they were words like blades to hurt, and if she swallowed them, she'd be scraped… — Helen Oyeyemi Anger Copy Share Image
“Aside from infrequent comments ("Cheer up, love," or "It's not Hallo'ween"), no one wondered why a teenager was dressed up as a… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
“Life has changed a lot, you know. You didn’t used to get all this food inside food inside food when I was… — Helen Oyeyemi Food Copy Share Image
I'm greedy about cities - I like to form my impressions of them on my own, and on foot as far as… — Helen Oyeyemi Copy Share Image
![“The language of [Catholic] mysticism - its repeated attempts to lay consciousness itself bare and speak all the intensely opposing yet interconnected parts of it that cannot be spoken.” quote by Helen Oyeyemi](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ed2/helen-oyeyemi-1658_catholic_the-language-of-catholic-mysticism-its-r_1219738.png)
