You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?' Aunty Ifeka said. 'Your life belongs to you and you alone.

Privilege blinds, because it's in its nature to blind. Don't let it blind you too often. Sometimes you will need to push it aside in order to see clearly.

I didn't know I was even supposed to HAVE issues until I came to America

The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?

I had consumed a lot of American culture, but I was not quite prepared for the reality of American poverty.

Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living.

I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.