The collection / 56 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1984 AD

She looked at the last thing she had written and she felt calm. Then she crossed the words out vehemently, scribbling until even the shape of the sentence was destroyed.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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02c. 1984 AD

Because he says he can't stand you and you act like you can't stand him, and whenever a man and a woman behave like that toward each other, it usually means something's going on.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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03c. 1984 AD

Life has changed a lot, you know. You didn't used to get all this food inside food inside food when I was a girl. The other day I was eating a mushroom and found it had been stuffed with prawns. I've got so many misgivings over this crazy, Boy. It's flying in the face of nature. A mushroom is a woodland fungus and a prawn comes from the sea. People have got no business stuffing one inside the other.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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04c. 1984 AD

No, this is pretty much the same version I read," I said, because it felt too damn late to back down. I imagine that from time to time some similar situation has led governments to declare war." pg.57

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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05c. 1984 AD

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 / quote

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06c. 1984 AD

I've come to think that there's an age beyond which it is impossible to lift a child from the pervading marinade of an original country, pat them down with a paper napkin and then deep-fry them in another country, another language like hot oil scalding the first language away.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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07c. 1984 AD

Whenever they were together they couldn't let sixty of their minutes pass without asking each other what time it was; as if time was a volatile currency that they either possessed or did not possess, when in fact time was more of a fog that rose inexorably over all their words and deeds so that their were either forgotten or misremembered.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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08c. 1984 AD

With growing disbelief, Jess yet again felt herself slipping into the gap - that gap of perception between what is really happening to a person and what others think is happening.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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09c. 1984 AD

I collected pictures and I drew pictures and I looked at the pictures by myself. And because no one else ever saw them, the pictures were perfect and true. They were alive.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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10c. 1984 AD

I think her favorite thing about our . . . collaboration was her actor and musician friends rubbing shoulders with my academic colleagues, she liked the atmosphere of challenge, the way anything that came under discussion could be claimed or rejected by either side. Time and time again the power of an idea or a piece of art was assessed by either its beauty or its technique or its usefulness, and time and time again my wife was surprised by how rarely anything on earth satisfies all three camps.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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11c. 1984 AD

School is one long illness with symptoms that switch every five minutes so you think it's getting better or worse. But really it's the same thing for years and years.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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12c. 1984 AD

First you try to find a reason, try to understand what you've done so wrong so you can be sure not to do it anymore. After that you look for signs of a Jekyll and Hyde situation, the good and the bad in a person sifted into separate compartments by some weird accident. Then, gradually, you realize that there isn't a reason, and it isn't two people you're dealing with, just one. The same one every time.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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13c. 1984 AD

A library at night is full of sounds: the unread books can't stand it any longer and announce their contents, some boasting, some shy, some devious.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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14c. 1984 AD

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 / quote

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15c. 1984 AD

Imagine having a mother who worries that you read too much. The question is, what is it that's supposed to happen to people who read too much? How can you tell when someone's crossed the line.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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16c. 1984 AD

I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don't have names.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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17c. 1984 AD

In Narnia a girl might ring a bell in a deserted temple and feel the chime in her eyes, pure as the freeze that forces tears. Then when the sound dies out, the White Witch wakes. It was like, I want to touch you, and I can touch you, now what next, a dagger?

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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18c. 1984 AD

Aside from infrequent comments ("Cheer up, love," or "It's not Hallo'ween"), no one wondered why a teenager was dressed up as a chic governess. Sylvie approved of Miri, even at the same time as she was confused by her. "It's a style at least," she said, and took off her rope of pearls and looped them around Miri's neck.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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19c. 1984 AD

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 / quote

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20c. 1984 AD

… 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 / quote

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21c. 1984 AD

It was snowing when I got off the bus at Flax Hill. Not quite regular snowfall, not exactly a blizzard. This is how it was: The snow came down heavily, settled for about a minute, then the wind moved it - more rolled it, really - onto another target. One minute you were covered in snow, then it sped off sideways, as if a brisk, invisible giant had taken pity and brushed you down.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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22c. 1984 AD

I was born, and then I was quietly resentful of that fact for a few years...but then I went to a library and it was okay.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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23c. 1984 AD

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 / quote

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24c. 1984 AD

And I think I decided not to love Charlie because I thought I had to be rescued. For practical reasons but also as a proof of love. It's better that Charlie and I didn't make an automatic transaction, love exchanged for rescue. All you can do after that is put the love and the rescue up on the shelf, moving them farther and farther back as you make room for all the other items you acquire over the years. This way a ragged stem still grows between us, almost pretty. Though really we should crush it now, before the buds bloom skeletal.

Helen Oyeyemi / quote

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