Afia

“Ifemelu stood by the window while Aunty Uju sat at the table drinking orange juice and airing her grievances like jewels. It had become a routine of Ifemelu’s visits: Aunty Uju collected all her dissatisfactions in a silk purse, nursing them, polishing them, and then on the Saturday of Ifemelu’s visit, while Bartholomew was out and Dike upstairs, she would spill them out on the table, and turn each one this way and that, to catch the light.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“The closer one gets to realizing his destiny,the more that destiny becomes his true reason for being.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Ifemelu decided to stop faking an American accent on a sunlit day in July, the same day she met Blaine. It was convincing, the accent. She had perfected, from careful watching of friends and newscasters, the blurring of the t, the creamy roll of the r, the sentences starting with “so,” and the sliding response of “oh really,” but the accent creaked with consciousness, it was an act of will. It took an effort, the twisting of lip, the curling of tongue. If she were in a panic, or terrified, or jerked awake during a fire, she would not remember how to produce those American sounds.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“Prosperity consists of two things: tea after a meal, and a cigarette after tea.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return