The Girl with the Louding Voice Quotes

“My mama say education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice, Ms. Tia. I want a louding voice,” I say. “I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking. I want to live in this life and help many people so that when I grow old and die, I will still be living through the people I am helping.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“I want to tell her that God is not a cement building of stones and sand. That God is not for all that putting inside a house and locking Him there. I want her to know that the only way to know if a person find God and keep Him in their heart is to check how the person is treating other people, if he treats people like Jesus says--with love, patience, kindness, and forgiveness.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“When you get up every day, I want you to remind yourself that tomorrow will be better than today. That you are a person of value. That you are important.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“At first I wasn't understanding him, but now it is not too much a problem. Everybody in the whole world be speaking different. Big Madam, Ms. Tia, Kofi, Abu, even me, Adunni. We all be speaking different because we all are having different growing-up life, but we can all be understanding each other if we just take the time to listen well.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Now I know that speaking good English is not the measure of intelligent mind and sharp brain. English is only a language, like Yoruba and Igbo and Hausa. Nothing about it is so special, nothing about it makes anybody have sense.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“you must do good for other peoples, even if you are not well, even if the whole world around you is not well.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Not his-story. My own will be called her-story.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind voice... I want a louding voice.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Who knows what else tomorrow will bring? So, I nod my head yes, because it is true, the future is always working, always busy unfolding better things, and even if it doesn’t seem so sometimes, we have hope of it.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“We all be speaking different because we all are having different growing-up life, but we can all be understanding each other if we just take the time to listen well.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come.” That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind voice . . . I want a louding voice.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“If it takes two people to make a baby, why only one person, the woman, is suffering when the baby is not coming? Is it because she is the one with breast and the stomach for being pregnant? Or because of what? I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than men?”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“... I feel a free that I didn't feel in long time. And when I smile, it climb from inside my stomach and spread itself on my teeth.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Write your truth, Ms. Tia say. Your truth.

I tear to pieces the paper, ad throw it to the floor. Then I swim deep inside the river of my soul, find the key from where it is sitting full of rust, at the bottom of the river, and open the lock. I kneel down beside my bed, close my eyes, turn myself into a cup, and pour the memory out of me.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Then I swim deep inside the river of my soul, find the key from where it is sitting, full of rust, at the bottom of the river, and open the lock. I kneel down beside my bed, close my eyes, turn myself into a cup, and pour the memory out of me.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“My mama say education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice, Ms. Tia. I want a louding voice,”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Tomorrow will be better than today. I am a somebody of value.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“why she is calling her abroad peoples white and black when colours are for crayons and pencils and things. I know that not everybody is having the same colour of skin in Nigeria, even me and Kayus and Born-boy didn’t have same skin colour, but nobody is calling anybody black or white, everybody is just calling us by our name: Adunni. Kayus. Born-boy. That’s all.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Because God is not the church,”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“It feels good to give Big Madam back her box of fear. To put the key on top of the box and leave it in her compound, in her house, where it belongs.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“...who knows what else tomorrow will bring? So, I nod my head yes, because it is true, the future is always working, always busy unfolding better things, and even if it doesn’t seem so sometimes, we have hope of it.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“She open her eyes, give me a sad smile. “I wish I am a man, but I am not, so I do the next thing I can do. I marry a man.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“Why will I fill up the world with sad childrens that are not having a chance to go to school? Why make the world to be one big, sad, silent place because all the childrens are not having a voice?”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“This is your wife now, from today till forever, she is your own. Do her anyhow you want. Use her till she is useless! May she never sleep in her father house again!” and everybody was laughing and saying, “Congra-lations! Amen! Congra-lations!”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“How will a girl like me born childrens? Why will I fill up the world with sad childrens that are not having a chance to go to school? Why make the world to be one big, sad, silent place because all the childrens are not having a voice?”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“I draw a breath, comforting myself with her scent of coconut oil and lily flower.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“The Slavery Abolition Act was signed in the yar of 1833, I say, as I sweep around his feet. 'But nobody is answering the abolition. The kings in Nigeria form before, they were selling people into slave work. Today, people are not wearing chain on their slaves and sending them abroad but salve trading is continuing. People are still breaking the Act. I want to do something to make it stop, to make people to behave better to other people, to stop slave-trading of the mind, not just of the body.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice

“and when she looks at me, her eyes dig a hole into my heart and pours her sorrow into the hole, burying me with it.”
― Abi Daré, The Girl with the Louding Voice