Quotes From "Americanah" By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Sometimes she worried that she was too happy.. . And her joy would become a restless thing, flapping its wings inside her, as though looking for an opening to fly away. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

When you want to join a prestigious social club, do you wonder if your race will make it difficult to join? If you do well in a situation, do you expect to be called a credit to your race? Or to be described as different from the majority of your race? If you need legal or medical help, do you worry that your race might work against you? If you take a job with an affirmative action employer, do you worry that your co-workers will think that you are unqualified and were hired only because of your race? Do you worry that your children will not have books and school materials that are about people of their own race? . Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ifemelu thought about the expression "sweet girl." Sweet girl meant that, for a long time, Don had molded Ranyinudo into a malleable shape, or that she had allowed him to think he had. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A book did not qualify as literature unless it had polysyllabic words and incomprehensible passages. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

People often told him how humble he was, but they did not mean real humility, it was merely that he did not flaunt his membership in the wealthy club, did not exercise the rights it brought–to be rude, to be inconsiderate, to be greeted rather than to greet–and because so many others like him exercised those rights, his choices were interpreted as humility. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ma? I think you have the spirit of husband-repelling. You are too hard, ma, you will not find a husband. But my pastor can destroy that spirit. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ifemelu would also come to learn that, for Kimberly, the poor were blameless. Poverty was a gleaming thing; she could not conceive of poor people being vicious or nasty because their poverty had canonized them, and the greatest saints were the foreign poor. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

..I'm worried I will leave grad school and no longer be able to speak English. I know this woman in grad school, a friend of a friend, and just listening to her talk is scary. The semiotic dialetics of intertextual modernity. Which makes no sense at all. Sometimes I feel that they live in a parallel universe of academia speaking acadamese instead of English and they don't really know what's happening in the real world. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Femelu could not understand this, her mother’s ability to tell herself stories about her reality that did not even resemble her reality Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

They never said “I don’t know.” They said, instead, “I’m not sure, ” which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Foreign behavior? What the fuck are you talking about? Foreign behavior? Have you read Things Fall Apart? Ifemulu asked, wishing she had not told Ranyinudo about Dike. She was angrier with Ranyinudo than she had ever been, yet she knew that Ranyinudo meant well, and had said what many other Nigerians would say, which was why she had not told anyone else about Dike's suicide attempt since she came back. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

...she thought of him as a person who did not have a normal spine, but had instead, a firm reed of goodness. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

One day, I will look up and all the people I know will be dead or abroad. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Alexa, and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it–you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about–and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get too excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion. . Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It felt strange to call them directly, to hear her father’s “Hello?” after the second ring, and when he heard her voice, he raised his, almost shouting, as he always did with international calls. Her mother liked to take the phone out to the verandah, to make sure the neighbors overheard: “Ifem, how is the weather in America? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

As they walked out of the store, Ifemelu said, “I was waiting for her to ask ‘Was it the one with two eyes or the one with two legs?’ Why didn’t she just ask ‘Was it the black girl or the white girl?’” Ginika laughed. “Because this is America. You’re supposed to pretend that you don’t notice certain things. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

She recognized in Kelsey the nationalism of liberal Americans who copiously criticized America but did not like you to do so; they expected you to be silent and grateful, and always reminded you of how much better than wherever you had come from America was. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Smiling a smile full of things restrained Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past. Racists are the thin-lipped mean white people in the movies about the civil rights era. Here's the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not. So if you haven't lynched somebody then you can't be called a racist. Somebody has to be able to say that racists are not monsters. They are people with loving families, regular folk who pay taxes. Somebody needs to get the job of deciding who is racist and who isn't. Or maybe it's time to just scrap the word 'racist.' Find something new. Like Racial Disorder Syndrome. And we could have different categories for sufferers of this syndrome: mild, medium, and acute. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Maybe it’s time to just scrap the word “racist.” Find something new. Like Racial Disorder Syndrome. And we could have different categories for sufferers of this syndrome: mild, medium, and acute. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

His optimism blinded her. He was full of plans. "I have an idea! " he said often. She imagined him as a child surrounded by too many brightly colored toys, always being encouraged to carry out "projects", always being told that his mundane ideas were wonderful. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It puzzled him that she did not mourn all the things she could have been. Was it a quality inherent in women, or did they just learn to shield their personal regrets, to suspend their lives, subsume themselves in child care? She browsed online forums about tutoring and music and schools, and she told him what she had discovered as though she truly felt the rest of the world should be as interested as she was in how music improved the mathematics skills of nine-year-olds. Or she would spend hours on the phone talking to her friends, about which violin teacher was good and which tutorial was a waste of money. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

They tell us race is an invention, that there is no genetic variation between two black people than there is between a black person and a white person. Then they tell us black people have a worse kind of breast cancer and get more fibroid. And white folk get cystic fibrosis and osteoporosis. So what’s the deal, is race an invention or not? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You're caged in. Your hair rules you. You didn't go running with Curt today because you don't want to sweat out this straightness. You're always battling to make your hair do what it wasn't meant to do. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Alexa and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him who were raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for for choice and certainty. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You can't write an honest novel about race in this country. If you write about how people are really affected by race, it'll be too obvious. Black writers who do literary fiction in this country, all three of them, not the ten thousand who write those bullshit ghetto books with the bright covers, have two choices: they can do precious or they can do pretentious. When you do neither, nobody knows what to do with you. So if you're going to write about race, you have to make sure it's so lyrical and subtle that the reader who doesn't read between the lines won't even know it's about race. You know, a Proustian meditation, all watery and fuzzy, that at the end just leaves you feeling watery and fuzzy."" Or just find a white writer. White writers can be blunt about race and get all activist because their anger isn't threatening. . Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Is Obama Anything but Black?So lots of folk–mostly non-black–say Obama’s not black, he’s biracial, multiracial, black-and-white, anything but just black. Because his mother was white. But race is not biology; race is sociology. Race is not genotype; race is phenotype. Race matters because of racism. And racism is absurd because it’s about how you look. Not about the blood you have. It’s about the shade of your skin and the shape of your nose and the kink of your hair. Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass had white fathers. Imagine them saying they were not black. Imagine Obama, skin the color of a toasted almond, hair kinky, saying to a census worker– I’m kind of white. Sure you are, she’ll say. Many American Blacks have a white person in their ancestry, because white slave owners liked to go a-raping in the slave quarters at night. But if you come out looking dark, that’s it. (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.) In America, you don’t get to decide what race you are. It is decided for you. Barack Obama, looking as he does, would have had to sit in the back of the bus fifty years ago. If a random black guy commits a crime today, Barack Obama could be stopped and questioned for fitting the profile. And what would that profile be? “Black Man. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

He lived in London indeed but invisibly, his existence like an erased pencil sketch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

White writers can be blunt about race and get all activist because their anger isn’t threatening Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The point of diversity workshops, or multicultural talks, was not to inspire any real change but to leave people feeling good about themselves. They did not want the content of her ideas; they merely wanted the gesture of her presence. They had not read her blog but they had heard that she was a “leading blogger” about race. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It doesn't have to be dreads. You can wear an Afro, or braids like you used to. There's a lot you can do with natural hair Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

On the day Princess Diana died, a group of students had gathered before a lecture, talking about what they had heard on the radio that morning, repeating “paparazzi” over and over, all sounding knowing and cocksure, until, in a lull, Okoli Okafor quietly asked, “But who exactly are the paparazzi? Are they motorcyclists?” and instantly earned himself the nickname Okoli Paparazzi Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Try more strategy and less force. Passion never wins any game, never mind what they say.” He said something similar now: “Excuses don’t win a game. You should try strategy. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

She did not tell him this, because it would hurt him to know she had felt that way for a while, that her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You could have just said Ngozi is your tribal name and Ifemelu is your jungle name and throw in one more as your spiritual name. They’ll believe all kinds of shit about Africa. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

There are many different ways to be poor in the world but increasingly there seems to be one single way to be rich. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Soon, " he said in his letter. They said "soon" to each other often, and "soon" gave their plan the weight of something real. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I don't want to be a sweetheart. I want to be the fucking love of your life, " Curt said with a force that startled her. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Oh, why did he slap her when she’s a widow, and that annoyed her even more. She said she should not have been slapped because she is a full human being, not because she doesn’t have a husband to speak for her. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie