“Flawed, imperfect creatures! That's what we both are, oga! That's what we ALL are!”
― Nnedi Okorafor, quote from Who Fears Death
“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 from Who Fears Death
“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 from Who Fears Death
“I was young but I hated like a middle-aged man at the end of his prime.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, quote from Who Fears Death
“the girl who was so lovely even her father couldn’t resist her.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, quote from Who Fears Death
“I think juju was worked on us at our Eleventh Rite. It’s . . . probably broken with marriage.” I looked hard at Luyu. “I think if you force intercourse, you’ll die.” “It is broken with marriage,” Diti said nodding. “My cousin always talks about how only a pure woman attracts a man pure enough to bring pleasure to the marriage bed. She says her husband is the purest man around . . . probably because he was the first who didn’t bring her pain.” “Ugh,” Luyu said, angrily. “We’re tricked into thinking our husbands are gods.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, quote from Who Fears Death
“Then I noticed it. Red and oval-shaped with a white oval in the center, like the giant eye of a jinni. It sizzled and hissed, the white part expanding, moving closer. It horrified me to my very core. Must get out of here! I thought. Now! It sees me! But I didn’t know how to move. Move with what? I had no body. The red was bitter venom. The white was like the sun’s worst heat. I started screaming and crying again. Then I was opening my eyes to a cup of water. Everyone’s face broke into a smile. “Oh, praise Ani,” the Ada said. I felt the pain and jumped, about to get up and run. I had to run. From that eye. I was so mixed up that for a moment, I was sure that what I’d just seen was causing the pain. “Don’t”
― Nnedi Okorafor, quote from Who Fears Death
“My mother once said that fear is like a man who, once burned, is afraid of a glow worm”
― Nnedi Okorafor, quote from Who Fears Death
“A tool always begs to be used. The trick is to learn how to use it.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, quote from Who Fears Death
“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 from Who Fears Death
“Her body swelled and stilled. There would be a moment when she would breathe for the last time. An exhalation. There would be that moment, her prize of air, her still lake, her sweet boat floating away away, her body warping wood, swale and heavy, a sinking thing. He sat beside her, a helpless observer, his only power in witness, some bleak ability to watch and record the event in his own brain, which sent the order to his lungs to breathe with her while she still breathed, channels rising, sparks of interior electrical connection fading with the mind's fool hope that it could create some kind of measurable response, to provide some worth of warmth. Her body beside his, swell and still. He thought of her still. He thought of holding her absolutely still. He loved, he loved her. He loved her, still.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
“Um dos estereótipos mais estranhos sobre nós é que homens gay odeiam lésbicas e vice-versa. Deixe-me poupar o seu tempo. Se você está conversando com homens gay que desprezam lésbicas (ou então depreciam a vagina como conceito), está falando com imbecis misóginos. Se você está falando com uma mulher gay que classifica todos os homens gay como odiadores de lésbicas, você está falando com uma homofóbica sexista.”
― James Dawson, quote from This Book is Gay
“This participation is important, because Jesus and the prophets lived with an awareness that God has been looking for partners since the beginning, people who will take seriously their divine responsibility to care for the earth and each other in loving, sustainable ways.”
― Rob Bell, quote from Love Wins Low Price CD: Love Wins Low Price CD
“I am a sinking ship made of unsinkable parts.”
― Tyler Knott Gregson, quote from Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series
“It's a relief to share the uncomplicated affection that has passed between people and their dogs for thousands of years.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from Homeland and Other Stories
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.