Quotes From "Mr Fox" By Helen Oyeyemi

I’m never sad when a friend goes far away, because whichever city or country that friend goes to, they turn the place friendly. They turn a suspicious-looking name on the map into a place where a welcome can be found. Maybe the friend will talk about you sometimes, to other friends that live around him, and then that’s almost as good as being there yourself. You’re in several places at once! In fact, my daughter, I would even go so far as to say that the further away your friends, and the more spread out they are the better your chances of going safely through the world…. Helen Oyeyemi

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 time, you don't have to wonder what they do, how they're getting along with themselves. You just know that they're all right, and probably doing something they like. Helen Oyeyemi

Young men ... learn practical skills that set is in good stead for lives as the husbands of wealthy and educated women: Strong Handshakes, Silence, Rudimentary Car Mechanics, How to Mow the Lawn, Explosive Displays of Authority, Sport and Nutrition Against Impotance. Helen Oyeyemi

So she quit working to make sense of things– we don’t realise it, but it’s hard work we do almost every waking moment, building out thoughts and memories and actions around time, things that happened yesterday, and things that are happening right now, and what’s coming tomorrow, layering all of that simultaneously and holding it in balance. Helen Oyeyemi

[i]We were fighting so very hard and achieving so very little aside from staying alive. BUT THAT’S EVERYTHING, my father wrote to me, when I told him that in a letter.[/i] Helen Oyeyemi

What do you want, Mary Foxe? My husband?" “I believe in him, " she said slowly. I wondered if she’d ever told him that, and if so, what he had to say about it. Someone you made up turns around and tells you they believe in you– what response could you possibly make? The scenario is just plain weird. And really kind of impertinent on her part, too. If it happened to me I think I’d be speechless for the rest of my life. Helen Oyeyemi

She encouraged herself to see her very small presence in the world as a good thing, a power, something that a hero might possess. Helen Oyeyemi

I would like to have nothing to do with you for hours on end and then come back and find you, come back with things I’ve thought and found all on my own– on my own, not through you. Helen Oyeyemi

In Egypt, like everywhere, the land is made to fit the sky; but here it is more so. Here it is possible to say, “This is land, " and point, and “This is sky, " and point, but the eyes can’t discover the dividing line. Helen Oyeyemi

… 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

And without further argument he unsheathed the sword and cleaved Miss Foxe's head from her neck. He knew what was supposed to happen. He knew that this awkward, whispering creature before him should now transform into a princess - dazzlingly beautiful, free, and made wise by her hardship. That is not what happened. Helen Oyeyemi