Buchi Emecheta

Quotes

1. Don't blame anyone for what has happened to your father. Things have changed drastically since the days of his own youth,but he has refused to see the changes...The fact is that parents get only reflected glory from their children nowadays,whereas your father has invested in all of you, just as his father invested in him so that he could help on the farm. Your father forgot that he himself left the family farm to come to this place.

2. 

   Yet the more I think about it the more I realise that we women set impossible standards for ourselves.

3. 

   You must know, my dear young lady, that in Lagos you may be a million publicity officers for the Americans; you may be earning a million pounds a day; you may have hundreds of servants: you may be living like an elite, but the day you land in England, you are a second-class citizen.”

4. 

   Some parents, especially those who have many children from different wives, may reject a bad son, a master may reject a wicked servant, a wife may go so far as to abandon a bad husband, but a mother can never, never reject her son. If he is convicted, she will be condemned alongside him.

5. 

   On her way back to their room, it occurred to Nnu Ego that she was a prisoner, imprisoned by her love for her children, imprisoned by her role as the senior wife. She was not even expected to demand more money for her family; that was considered below the standard expected of a woman in her position. It was not fair, she felt, the way men cleverly used a woman’s sense of responsability to actually enslave her. They knew that the traditional wife like herself would never dream of leaving her children.”

6. 

   She had gambled with marriage, just like most people, but she had gambled unluckily and had lost.

7. 

   She did not delude herself into expecting Francis to love her. He had never been taught how to love, but had an arresting way of looking pleased at Adah's achievements.

8. 

   Did she not feel totally fulfilled when she had completed the manuscript, just as if it were another baby she had had?

9. 

   The fear of everybody was that the man might give in and say, "After all, it's her life." However a thing like that is not permitted in Nigeria; you are simply not allowed to commit suicide in peace, because everyone is responsible for the other person. Foreigners may call us a nation of busybodies, but to us, an individual's life belongs to the community and not just to him or her.

10. 

    They were going to get the room they were asking for. Pa Noble was too old for Sue.

11. 

    London, having killed Adah's congregational God, created instead a personal God who loomed large and really alive.

12. 

    Hunger drove Francis to work as a clerical officer in the post office. Adah's hopes rose. This might save the marriage after all.