A book did not qualify as literature unless it had polysyllabic words and incomprehensible passages.

Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care.

There are many different ways to be poor in the world but increasingly there seems to be one single way to be rich.

Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.

Sometimes she worried that she was too happy. . . And her joy would become a restless thing, flapping its wings inside her, as though looking for an opening to fly away.

Ifemelu thought about the expression "sweet girl." Sweet girl meant that, for a long time, Don had molded Ranyinudo into a malleable shape, or that she had allowed him to think he had.

Ma? I think you have the spirit of husband-repelling. You are too hard, ma, you will not find a husband. But my pastor can destroy that spirit.

femelu could not understand this, her mother’s ability to tell herself stories about her reality that did not even resemble her reality

They never said “I don’t know.” They said, instead, “I’m not sure, ” which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge.

...she thought of him as a person who did not have a normal spine, but had instead, a firm reed of goodness.

One day, I will look up and all the people I know will be dead or abroad.

When we approach the journey acknowledging what we do not know and what we can’t control, we maintain our energy for the quest.

Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

Ive done a lot of shows that didnt do well. You have to go in with a 50-50 take on it. If it goes well, fantastic. Hope for the best and plan for the worst.

Maybe, I got a sense when [Star Wars] came out, and there were always these lines around the block. We didn't understand the popularity of Cheers until maybe five years into the series.

There is a theme that runs through my work, and that is: the toxic property of keeping secrets.

I like to wear things, I don't like things to wear me.

Written with grace and thoroughly researched, One People, One Blood is an ethnography with a lot of heart that also sheds new light on a fascinating and fraught chapter in recent Jewish history.

If I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross out. I'm not proud.

Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.