Ifemelu Quotes

″ When you make the choice to come to America, you become black. ”

“That was what Curt had given her, this gift of contentment, of ease. ”

″ He expected her to feel what she did not know how to feel. ”

“I can’t believe it. My president is black like me. ”

“She was no longer sure what was new in Lagos and what was new in herself. ”

“She was inside this silence and she was safe. ”

“She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size.”

“You told him what he wasn’t but you didn’t tell him what he was.”

“They have the kind of things we can eat. ”

“She had won, indeed, but her triumph was full of air. Her fleeting victory had left in its wake a vast, echoing space, because she had taken on, for too long, a pitch of voice and a way of being that was not hers.”

“Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t ‘black’ in your country? You’re in America now.”