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.

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.

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

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.

Only those who do not practice sin can stand in the presence of the holy God." -"I NEVER KNEW YOU

Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.

My younger brother is an architect, my son and his wife are both architects, they work for me, and so I guess I've started a dynasty.

The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer's mistress.

Look, I've always said from the word go many years ago that I felt the whole bonus culture, they need to think very carefully about being detached from the rest of the British public.

Women are so enigmatical - some in everything - all in matters of the heart. Don't they sometimes actually admire what is repulsive?

I've had editors over the years who couldn't find a clue if it was stapled to their butt.

You realize how many times lightning has to strike in order for you to be sitting here?

Why were there no buoys in life to show you the way?

This is the kind of work I've aspired to my whole career.