For me, feminism is a movement for which the end goal is to make itself no longer needed. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie More Quotes by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie More Quotes From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie details writing mean That her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sitting house window Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie cookies reducing racism Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie white-privilege choices race Death would be a complete knowingness, but what frightened him was this: not knowing beforehand what it was he would know. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie frightened knowing would-be When the writing is going well, I'm obsessive. I don't shower, I don't take phone calls, I hardly respond to text messages, I don't do email. I take breaks only to read, and usually I read poetry. When it's not going well, I just lie in bed and eat chocolate. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie chocolate writing lying I was stained by failure. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie It is easy to romanticize poverty, to see poor people as inherently lacking agency and will. It is easy to strip them of human dignity, to reduce them to objects of pity. This has never been clearer than in the view of Africa from the American media, in which we are shown poverty and conflicts without any context. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie badass agency views 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. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie black choices america I think human beings exist in a social world. I write realistic fiction, and so it isn't that surprising that the social realities of their existence would be part of the story. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writing reality thinking Yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today, and we must fix it, we must do better. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gender problem today I am interested in challenging the mainstream ideas of what is beautiful and what is acceptable. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie challenges beautiful ideas At some point I was a HappyAfricanFeminist who does not hate men. And who likes lip gloss and who wears high heels for herself but not for men. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie high-heels hate men Red was the blood of the siblings massacred in the North, black was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have, and, finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious future. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sibling yellow blood The only reason race matters is because of racism. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie racism race matter When it comes to dressing well, American culture is so self-fulfilled that it has not only disregarded this courtesy of self-presentation, but has turned that disregard into a virtue. "We are too superior/busy/cool/not-uptight to bother about how we look to other people, and so we can wear pajamas to school and underwear to the mall. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie self people school You can have ambition Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ambition successful men And it's wrong of you to think that love leaves room for nothing else. It's possible to love something and still condescend to it. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie stills rooms thinking Greatness depends on where you are coming from. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie depends where-you-are greatness We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls 'You can have ambition, but not too much'. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie mutual-support girl ambition
