Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls 'You can have ambition, but not too much'.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: January 1
Feminist
Novelist
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Smaller
Ambition
Girls
Teach
Girl
Flawless
Much
Shrink
Make
Shrinks
Aspire
More quotes by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
There are many different ways to be poor in the world but increasingly there seems to be one single way to be rich.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Richard exhaled. It was like somebody sprinkling pepper on his wound: Thousands of Biafrans were dead, and this man wanted to know if there was anything new about one dead white man. Richard would write about this, the rule of Western journalism: One hundred dead black people equal to one dead white person.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I don't believe that art and politics or social issues must be separated. In writing about marriage, for example, money can be a big factor, and money is linked to earning, and earning is influenced by politics.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I didn't know I was even supposed to HAVE issues until I came to America
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The idea that sex is something a woman gives a man, and she loses something when she does that, which again for me is nonsense. I want us to raise girls differently where boys and girls start to see sexuality as something that they own, rather than something that a boy takes from a girl.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Death would be a complete knowingness, but what frightened him was this: not knowing beforehand what it was he would know.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
It is easy to romanticize poverty, to see poor people as inherently lacking agency and will. It is easy to strip them of human dignity, to reduce them to objects of pity. This has never been clearer than in the view of Africa from the American media, in which we are shown poverty and conflicts without any context.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Feminist: A person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I was stained by failure.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
At some point I was a HappyAfricanFeminist who does not hate men. And who likes lip gloss and who wears high heels for herself but not for men.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Culture does not make people - people make culture. So if it is in fact true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, we must make it our culture. [...] A feminist is a man or a woman who says, 'yes there is a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it. We must do better.'
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.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The only reason race matters is because of racism.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
If you start thinking about being likable you are not going to tell your story honestly.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in real African culture, before it was tainted by the west, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Your life belongs to you and you alone.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today, and we must fix it, we must do better.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
When we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
You deserve to take up space.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
