I wanted to explore expectations we have of people - what a woman should be, what a man should be. And if they don't meet our own interpretation of who they should be because of their gender, their background, their ethnic group, we then come to conclusions about them that are not accurate.

Ayobami Adebayo

Categorized in : Man Woman People Gender

I think a large part of being human centers on the state of being alone, and we try to mitigate that in so many ways.

Ayobami Adebayo

alone try think being-alone

When I had a full-time job, I would write dialogue and sketch characters on my commute and during meetings. Now, I forsake showers and regular meals and stay at my desk for hours, taking breaks to drink tea and eat something sweet, usually cake.

Ayobami Adebayo

job cake tea sweet

I am interested in the idea that people should be able to define their own happiness.

Ayobami Adebayo

i-am own happiness people

I have always been very interested in the idea of loneliness and the presumption that romantic relationships are supposed to rid you of that.

Ayobami Adebayo

you always loneliness romantic

I come from a part of Nigeria where a lot of value is placed on implicit communication. The 'well brought up' child is the one who can pick up nonverbal cues from adults and interpret them correctly.

Ayobami Adebayo

value well child communication

Never lend people money you can't afford to give them as a gift.

Ayobami Adebayo

gift you money people

Having children does become tied to a sense of identity and our value as humans.

Ayobami Adebayo

value become identity children

I'm still startled when people ask me for writing advice.

Ayobami Adebayo

me writing advice people

I wanted to write about extended family systems. You have people you can fall back on, and it's good. But what if you don't fit into what is expected of you?

Ayobami Adebayo

good you family people

My mother has a lot of sisters. They had very, very interesting conversations. Because I was a quiet child, I would sit in the room and listen to these stories. I think I developed a curiosity about the life of other people from that, and an interest in looking at what was lying beneath the layer of what people present in public.

Ayobami Adebayo

looking mother life people

Wole Soyinka's 'Death and the King's Horseman' is a play I go back to and I read often.

Ayobami Adebayo

king back go death

I think, for women in particular, it's kind of like you're expected to get married, have a child, and then you get to be a person. But you don't need someone else - be it a spouse or child - to complete or validate your existence. Being human is enough and should be enough, and I hope that we all come to a point where we can accept that.

Ayobami Adebayo

child you women hope

When I was in my late teens, a couple of friends passed away suddenly. This was quite distressing, but after a while, as tends to happen when one is once or twice removed from grief, I stopped thinking about them all the time.

Ayobami Adebayo

friends grief time thinking

There's a Yoruba proverb which roughly translates into, 'What turns its face to one person has turned its back on the other.' It's always made me think about how deeply subjective our experience of the world can be.

Ayobami Adebayo

face me experience world

'Stay with Me' started out being very political, largely because I'm a little obsessed with politics.

Ayobami Adebayo

stay me politics political

I'd always been interested in Nigeria's past.

Ayobami Adebayo

been always nigeria past

I'm still very interested in the things that happened in the '80s and the '70s because I think that they were very important years for Nigeria. In the '80s, we were under a military dictatorship for quite a while, and I think that the way we engage with our country as citizens was shaped in many ways by the events that took place in that time.

Ayobami Adebayo

place think time way

There is a strong view in Nigeria, as in many other cultures, that a marriage is not complete without children. I don't agree; I'm wary of the idea that people have to have some particular functionality in order to be full members of society.

Ayobami Adebayo

marriage society children people

I don't suffer from SCD myself, but I do carry the gene. This means that if I married another person who carried the gene, there would be a danger our children would suffer from the disease.

Ayobami Adebayo

suffer person myself children

In 2010, I was working in a bank in Lagos. It was a crazy job with long working hours. I had to leave for the office by 5:30 A.M., and sometimes I wouldn't be back until midnight.

Ayobami Adebayo

job crazy sometimes long