Yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today, and we must fix it, we must do better. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie More Quotes by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie More Quotes From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size.. It seemed so natural, to talk to him about odd things. She had never done that before. The trust, so sudden and yet so complete, and the intimacy, frightened her.. But now she could think only of all the things she yet wanted to tell him, wanted to do with him. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie skins self thinking There are people who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not crawl, once Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie baby past fall Is love this misguided need to have you beside me most of the time? Is love this safety I feel in our silences? Is it this belonging, this completeness? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie safety silence needs I am a person who believes in asking questions, in not conforming for the sake of conforming. I am deeply dissatisfied - about so many things, about injustice, about the way the world works - and in some ways, my dissatisfaction drives my storytelling. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie asking-questions sake believe The novels I love, the ones I remember, the ones I re-read, have an empathetic human quality, or 'emotional truth'. This quality is difficult to fully define, but I always recognise it when I see it: it is different from honesty and more resilient than fact, something that exists not in the kind of fiction that explains but in the kind that shows. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie quality emotional honesty You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?' Aunty Ifeka said. 'Your life belongs to you and you alone. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie yellow-sun said men Why must we always talk about race anyway? Can't we just be human beings? And Professor Hunk replied - that is exactly what white privilege is, that you can say that. 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 Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie broken stories people The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reign tyrants weak She could not complain about not having shoes when the person she was talking to had no legs. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shoes complaining talking The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be, rather than recognising how we are. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gender problem should This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie miracle love romantic I have many problems in my life, but I don't think that identity is one of them. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie problem identity thinking Feminist: A person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie feminist believe sex There's something very lazy about the way you have loved him blindly for so long without ever criticizing him. You've never even accepted that the man is ugly,' Kainene said. There was a small smile on her face and then she was laughing, and Olanna could not help but laugh too, because it was not what she had wanted to hear and because hearing it had made her feel better. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie feel-better men long She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie affection self firsts All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie men order book The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tragedy real people When I'm in a good mood I like to cook. But I don't like saying it in public because I find myself being resentful of the idea; "Now you will make a good wife. You can cook, right?" So when people ask me I go, "No, I don't like cooking!" Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wife cooking people There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie yellow-sun unforgivable