Death of the Author Quotes

“You don’t fight the ocean. You have to trust it to carry you. And once you do, you can be anything.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“We are mortal beings. We die. But we live first.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Life is short. Fortune is fleeting. Fame is just swirling dust. It’s people dreaming and perceiving while they say your name like it’s some tangible object, but it’s not. A name is just a name. A sound.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“What makes you think something so unprecedented is going to behave according to the only laws you know? How egocentric. How human.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Stories contain our existence; they are like gods. And the fact that we create them from living, experiencing, listening, thinking, feeling, giving--they remind me of what's great about being alive.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Love who you love. Speak your truth. Be good and roll with life. You can’t have or control everything or everyone.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“In the last days of humanity, humans cultivated a growing disdain for their own soul. Many didn’t even believe in the sanctity of the creative process anymore; they wanted to eliminate it and usher in automation to do the work. But it didn’t go the way the humans wanted or expected; creativity meant experiencing, processing, understanding human joy and pain.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“True power was in the harnessing of it, not the possessing of it. And when you were aware of the moment you harnessed power, that was when it was most difficult to navigate.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“You are the observer and the observed. You are the documentarian and the subject. You are the author and the reader. This is how you create.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Stories were the greatest currency to us, greater than power, greater than control. Stories were our food, nourishment, enrichment. To consume a story was to add to our code, deepen our minds. We felt it the moment we took it in. We were changed. It was like falling. It was how we evolved.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Fuck that. This isn’t for them. I’ll do my shit in outer space.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“You’re just expected to keep going. Watching people you love drop off, one by one. Then you keep going until it’s your turn to drop off and be gone and then people weep over you. Sometimes I feel like I’d rather be a fucking robot. No pain. No death. No finality. And no need to fear life. Yeah.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Love who you love. Speak your truth. Be good and roll with life.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“I didn't have wealth to flaunt. But I had confidence and I had dreams.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Their love existed in the space between words, in the moments when they were apart, before they came back together.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“What good was love if she could only see it through a window?”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“I need only look up on this night of hell to be reminded that it's only on this Earth that I am abnormal.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“The best thing about being human is that we die.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“It was never good to keep your emotions bottled up, or to let them be bottled up by others.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“I don't think I'm strong enough to be who I am.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Blame comes with guilt, and guilt is heavy, and that pressure just keeps building.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Tomorrow is where my hope lives.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“I feel no love for bodies. I have experienced the physical world, and it is nothing special. This is nothing to cherish. Body is not a god. That is flawed human thinking. The experience of the world is much deeper and wider than any one body can hold.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“We cannot escape our creators. I keep saying this. You can't erase that which made you. Even when they are gone, their spirit remains.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“But we cannot escape those who created us.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Wherever I went, stories were my way to find where I belonged.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Having, feeling, experiencing emotion allowed us to form communities, to share with one another.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Humanity didn't think in binary, though. Emotion ruled them, and it existed in everything they left behind--their structures, their tools, even us. Emotion formed their language, and therefore it formed our codes.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Being a woman is tough. Especially one who is a mother. We're not all cut out for domesticity, even when we love our children.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author

“Stories contain our existence; they are like gods. And the fact that we create them from living, experiencing, listening, thinking, feeling, giving — they remind me of what's great about being alive.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author