The voices / 16 fragments

Nnedi Okorafor

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01Undated

Two footsteps do not make a path.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

02Undated

School will bring you more success than marriage.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

03Undated

Neither (brother) even glaced at the counter. She smiled. Her dumb brothers never cooked. She didn’t think they even knew how! A human being who needs food to live but cannot prepare that food to eat? Pathetic. In this case, it was an advantage. They weren’t interested in any food until it had been cooked for them.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

04Undated

We all must travel,' the driver said, keeping his eyes on the way ahead. His hands grasped the wheel firmly. 'It is the essence of all things, to move and change and keep going forward and backward and around. Even the spirits and the dead.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

05Undated

The Magical Negro rested his red cane on his shoulder and leisurely strolled into the forest to see if he could find him some hobbits, castles, dragons, princesses, and all that other shit.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

06Undated

You know how the story ends. He escaped and went on to become the greatest chief Suntown ever had. He never built a shrine or a temple or even a shack in the name of Tia. In the Great Book, her name is never mentioned again. He never mused about her or even asked where she was buried. Tia was a virgin. She was beautiful. She was poor. And she was a girl. It was her duty to sacrifice her life for his.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

07Undated

There will be danger; some of you may not live to complete your lessons. It's a risk you take. This world is bigger than you and it will go on, regardless.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

08Undated

I felt the pain and the glory of growth, was straining and shuddering with it.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

09Undated

Sometimes a man must throw caution to the wind.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

10Undated

To be something abnormal meant that you were to serve the normal. And if you refused, they hated you... and often the normal hated you even when you did serve them.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

11Undated

Feet away, Professor Dema stood, carrying a large gunlike weapon with both her hands and a snarl on her lips. This was not the way final exams were supposed to go.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

12Undated

The Nuru men, and their women, had done what they did for more than torture and shame. They wanted to create Ewu children. Such children are not the children of forbidden love between a Nuru and an Okeke, nor are they Noahs, Okekes born without color. The Ewu are children of violence.An Okeke woman will never kill a child kindled inside of her. She would go against even her husband to keep a child in her womb alive. However, custom dictates that the child is the child of her father. These Nuru had planted poison. An Okeke woman who gave birth to an Ewu child was bound to the Nuru through her child.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

13Undated

I am the unseen. For centuries I have been here, beneath this great city, this metropolis. I know your language. I know all languages. . . . My cave is broad and cool. The sun cannot send its heat down here. The damp soil is rich and fragrant. I turn softly on my back and place my eight legs to the cave ceiling. Then, I listen. I am the spider. I see sound. I feel taste. I hear touch. I spin this story. This is the story I’ve spun.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

14Undated

Prejudice begets prejudice, you see. Knowledge does not always evolve into wisdom.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

15Undated

You might have liked the United States more,”” she said. “They’ve got more stuff. And if your spaceship is broken, they can probably fix it better.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote

16Undated

It's more fun to write villains. They are more of a challenge, and I get a sick kind of pleasure out of delving into their minds. There's rarely emptiness, and there is almost always deep intelligence.

Nnedi Okorafor / quote