Helen Oyeyemi citations

“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.”

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

“The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it’s ready and then your ghost pours the resurrection potion out of the moka pot.”

“Her heart was heavy because it was open, and so things filled it, and so things rushed out of it, but still the heart kept beating, tough and frighteningly powerful and meaning to shrug off the rest of her and continue on its own.”

“I wish there was someone I could have written to after that, someone I could have written to explain how awful it was to have someone touch you, then look at you properly and change his mind.”

“It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be one.”

“… there’s a difference between having no one because you’ve chosen it and having no one because everyone has been taken away.”

“For reasons of my own I take note of the way people act when they’re around mirrors.”

“You don’t return people’s smiles—it’s perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains.”

“She encouraged herself to see her very small presence in the world as a good thing, a power, something that a hero might possess.”

“If you should find yourself in a place that is indifferent to you and there is someone there that your spirit stretches to, then that person is kin.”