Who Fears Death Quotes

“Flawed, imperfect creatures! That's what we both are, oga! That's what we ALL are!”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“To be something abnormal meant that you were to serve the normal. And if you refused, they hated you... and often the normal hated you even when you did serve them.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“I was young but I hated like a middle-aged man at the end of his prime.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“You know how the story ends. He escaped and went on to become the greatest chief Suntown ever had. He never built a shrine or a temple or even a shack in the name of Tia. In the Great Book, her name is never mentioned again. He never mused about her or even asked where she was buried. Tia was a virgin. She was beautiful. She was poor. And she was a girl. It was her duty to sacrifice her life for his.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“I was a trapped animal. Not trapped by the women, the house, or tradition. I was trapped by life. Like I had been a free spirit for millennia and then one day something snatched me up, something violent and angry and vengeful, and I was pulled into the body that I now resided in.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“We'll never know exactly why we are, what we are, and so on. All you can do is follow your path all the way to the wilderness, and then you continue along because that's what must be.”
― Nnedi Okorafor , Who Fears Death

“If you spend enough time in the desert, you will hear it speak.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“My mother once said that fear is like a man who, once burned, is afraid of a glow worm”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“Oh, how our traditions limit and outcast those of us who aren't normal.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“Butterflies understand the desert well. That’s why they move this way and that. They’re always Holding Conversation with the land. They talk as much as they listen. It’s in the desert’s language that you call the butterflies.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“We all are born with burdens. Some of us more than others.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“Fate is fixed like brittle crystal in the dark.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“BRICOLEUR, ONE WHO USES all that he has to do what he has to do,” Aro said. “This is what you must become. We all have our own tools. One of yours is energy, that’s why you anger so easily. A tool always begs to be used. The trick is to learn how to use it.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“one is going to take action.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“If you don’t recognize yourself, then who is the one who reminds you of who you are?”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“the girl who was so lovely even her father couldn’t resist her.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“My dear, you think too hard," was all she said. "Come here." She stood up and wrapped me in her arms. We cried and sobbed and wept and bled tears. But when we were finished, all we could do was continue living.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“To be something abnormal meant that you were to serve the normal. And if you refused, they hated you . . . and often the normal hated you even when you did serve them.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“As the day progressed we moved inside. Well into the night, we talked about nothing much of substance. Insignificance. Wonderful unimportance.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“A tool always begs to be used. The trick is to learn how to use it.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“Then I noticed it. Red and oval-shaped with a white oval in the center, like the giant eye of a jinni. It sizzled and hissed, the white part expanding, moving closer. It horrified me to my very core. Must get out of here! I thought. Now! It sees me! But I didn’t know how to move. Move with what? I had no body. The red was bitter venom. The white was like the sun’s worst heat. I started screaming and crying again. Then I was opening my eyes to a cup of water. Everyone’s face broke into a smile. “Oh, praise Ani,” the Ada said. I felt the pain and jumped, about to get up and run. I had to run. From that eye. I was so mixed up that for a moment, I was sure that what I’d just seen was causing the pain. “Don’t”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“I think juju was worked on us at our Eleventh Rite. It’s . . . probably broken with marriage.” I looked hard at Luyu. “I think if you force intercourse, you’ll die.” “It is broken with marriage,” Diti said nodding. “My cousin always talks about how only a pure woman attracts a man pure enough to bring pleasure to the marriage bed. She says her husband is the purest man around . . . probably because he was the first who didn’t bring her pain.” “Ugh,” Luyu said, angrily. “We’re tricked into thinking our husbands are gods.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“When I am not moving toward my fate, it comes to me.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“Rejection.

Such things will quietly creep up on a person. Then one day, she finds herself ready to destroy everything.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“You act like a woman. You run on emotions. You're dangerous.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“He kissed me again and quietly, carefully, softly, he spoke the words that few women ever hear from a man. “Ifunanya.” They’re ancient words. They don’t exist among any other group of people. There is no direct translation in Nuru, English, Sipo, or Vah. This word only has meaning when spoken by a man to the one he loves. A woman can’t use the word unless she is barren. It is not juju. Not in the way that I know it. But the word has strength. It’s wholly binding if it is true and the emotion reciprocated. This is not like the word “love.” A man can tell a woman he loves her every day. Ifunanya is spoken only once in a man’s life. Ifu means to “look into,” “n” means “the,” and anya means “eyes”. The eyes are the window to the soul.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“ONE WHO USES all that he has to do what he has to do,” Aro said. “This is what you must become. We all have our own tools. One of yours is energy, that’s why you anger so easily. A tool always begs to be used. The trick is to learn how to use it.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“Oh, how our traditions limit and outcast those of us who aren’t normal.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“Los okekes tienen la piel del color de la noche porque fueron creados antes que el día. Fueron los primeros. Más tarde, mucho después de eso, llegaron los nurus. Proceden de las estrellas, y por eso su piel es del color del sol.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

“. . . None of us were ever allowed to be that free in Jwahir.”
I laughed. “You were.”
She laughed, too. “Because I learned to take what wasn’t given to me.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death