Americanah Quotes
"Philadelphia had the musty scent of history. New Haven smelled of neglect. Baltimore smelled of brine, and Brooklyn of sun-warmed garbage."
"She liked the campus, grave with knowledge, the Gothic buildings with their vine-laced walls."
"The more she wrote, the less sure she became. Each post scraped off yet one more scale of self until she felt naked and false."
"She was fat. She was not curvy or big-boned; she was fat, it was the only word that felt true."
"Nigeria became where she was supposed to be, the only place she could sink her roots in without the constant urge to tug them out and shake off the soil."
"But she had not had a bold epiphany and there was no cause; it was simply that layer after layer of discontent had settled in her."
"A part of him hoped she would ask a question or challenge him, though he knew she would not, because all she wanted was to make sure the conditions of their life remained the same."
"She often told him that her friends envied her, and said he behaved like a foreign husband, the way he made her breakfast on weekends and stayed home every night."
"His mannered English bothered her as she got older, because it was costume, his shield against insecurity."
"God is faithful. Look at Uju, to afford a house on The Island!"
"There is no need to show the world that things are hard for us."
"If something bigger than the farm is dug up, the barn is sold."
"The devil is using you. You have to pray about this."
"You must refrain from your natural proclivity towards provocation."
"But we are not the enemy. The military is the enemy."
"But she could not think of The General as endearing."
"Aunty, I think what happened to you before Dike came has happened to me."
"It is not my concern if you are embarrassed."
"Each time you say it, the word hurts African Americans."
"I don't think it's always hurtful. I think it depends on the intent and also on who is using it."
"You can give me a massage, help me relax, you know."
"I know I'm mauling your name but it really is such a beautiful name. Really beautiful."
"You know, you can just say 'black.' Not every black person is beautiful."
"It makes no sense to me. If it was used like that, then it should be represented like that. Hiding it doesn't make it go away."
"I'm sure back home you ate a lot of wonderful organic food and vegetables, but you're going to see it's different here."
"I don't understand how anybody will believe I'm Ngozi Okonkwo."
"It's normal. Children are curious about things like that at an early age, but they don't really understand it."
"I don’t have a babysitter," Laura said, her "I" glowing with righteous emphasis. "I’m a full-time, hands-on mom."
"It’s cartoon. Kids are traumatized by the real thing," Laura looked annoyed.
"You must be Ginika’s friend from Nigeria," he said, smiling, brimming with his awareness of his own charm.
"I’m interviewing one more person and then I’ll let you know, but I really think you’re a great fit for us," Kimberly said.
"I know he never asked me this kind of thing before we moved here," Aunty Uju said.
"You better not kill my dog with voodoo," Elena said.
"It’s just so honest, the most honest book I’ve read about Africa," Kelsey said.
"I just think it’s a simplistic comparison to make. You need to understand a bit more history," Ifemelu said.
"I cannot marry a Nigerian and I won’t let anybody in my family marry a Nigerian," Mariama said.
"I’m about to move in for a kiss in exactly three seconds," he said. "A real kiss that can take us places, so if you don’t want that to happen, you might want to back off right now."
"He was upbeat, relentlessly so, in a way that only an American of his kind could be, and there was an infantile quality to this that she found admirable and repulsive."
"He believed in good omens and positive thoughts and happy endings to films, a trouble-free belief, because he had not considered them deeply before choosing to believe; he just simply believed."
"We are very anti-welfare but we did very much support civil rights. I just want you to know the kind of Republicans we are."
"Why did American football have no inherent logic, just overweight men jumping on top of one another?"
"Understanding America for the Non-American Black: What Do WASPs Aspire To?"
"You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene."
"I don’t want to be a sweetheart. I want to be the fucking love of your life."
"The laughter was soon forgotten, perhaps because nobody had ever fully believed the prince story."
"His was the coiled, urgent restlessness of a person who believed that fate had mistakenly allotted him a place below his true destiny."
"When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters."
"The simplest solution to the problem of race in America? Romantic love."
"I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America."
"We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say."
"We laugh too much. Maybe we should laugh less and solve our problems more."
"There were, simply, times that he saw and times that he was unable to see."
"It's not political. No, I am not an artist or poet or singer. Not an earth mother either. I just don’t want relaxers in my hair."
"I was terrified that it was the sort of place where you did not know what might happen to you if you suddenly said, ‘I don’t like America.’"
"The thought of skiing in America makes me quite ill."
"It's a bit tiresome to talk about America being insular, not that we help that much, since if something major happens in America, it is the headline in Britain."
"Their life together had happened to her, she would not have been able to imagine it if she had tried."
"She did the same bland things, writing press releases, editing press releases, copyediting press releases, her movements rote and numbing."
"Perhaps it had always been so and she had not noticed, because she was blinded by the brightness of Curt."
"She had long dreamed of, and talked about, when they would be able to visit her."
"They both posed for photos in front of JC Penney, asking Ifemelu to make sure she got the entire sign of the store."
"She was relieved that her parents had gone, and she felt guilty for feeling relief."
"She had not planned to resign, but it suddenly seemed to be what she had to do."
"Yet a part of her always stiffened with apprehension, expecting the person on the other end to realize that she was play-acting."
"Most of the people who attended her first diversity talk, at a small company in Ohio, wore sneakers."
"The point of diversity workshops, or multicultural talks, was not to inspire any real change but to leave people feeling good about themselves."
"She was cooking coconut rice, her apartment thick with spices."
"She would be a perfect father, this man of careful disciplines."
"Blaine asked her to move in after a month, but it took a year before she did."
"She had written a post about inner cities—'Why Are the Dankest, Drabbest Parts of American Cities Full of American Blacks?'"
"Her posts sounded too academic, too much like him."
"She felt a step removed from the things he believed, and the things he knew."
"She could have lied, invented a new job, or simply said she wanted to move."
"So if you are that blond, blue-eyed woman who says 'My grandfather was Native American and I get discrimination too' when black folk are talking about shit, please stop it already."
"I don’t even know how to hack," Dike said drily.
"Why would they do this sort of rubbish?" Ifemelu asked.
"You have to blame the black kid first," he said, and laughed.
"Those people in your school are fools," Ifemelu said.
"Can I come this weekend so we can cook coconut rice? I’ll do the cooking," she said.
"If only the man who wrote this book could be the president of America."
"It’s the final infantilization and informalization of America! It portends the end of the American empire, and they are killing themselves from within!"
"I buy only British clothes for my baby because American ones fade after one wash," she said.
"I think I would freeze if the AC was turned on to the lowest."
"I miss a decent vegetarian place?" Doris said.
"There are only four vegetarians in this country, including Doris," Bisola said.
"The brunch is really good. They have the kinds of things we can eat. We should go next Sunday."
"But Hollywood makes equally bad movies. They just make them with better lighting."
"Willing to like something, it’s a strange idea."
"I am so sleepy. I’m going to send Esther to make Nescafé before I fall asleep in the meeting."
"You are the woman I love. Nothing can change that."
"I realized that the money I have isn’t really mine, as if I’m holding it for someone else for a while."
"I’m never going to ask you for anything. I’m a grown woman and I knew your situation when I got into this."
"The problem is I’m not always secret about it."
"It’s just refreshing to have an intelligent person to talk to."
"I know this isn’t about sex. This has never been about sex."
"She was a literal person who did not read, she was content rather than curious about the world."
"I am in love with another woman. There’s someone else. I’m leaving you."
"It’s about keeping this family together! You took a vow before God."
"Race doesn’t really work here. I feel like I got off the plane in Lagos and stopped being black."
"The Nigerian government basically finances the oil industry with cash calls."