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Helen Oyeyemi Quotes

Browse 55 quotes about Helen Oyeyemi.

Helen Oyeyemi Quotes

“Love. I'm not capable of it, can't even approach it from the side, let alone head-on. Nor am I alone in this—everyone is like this, the liars. Singing songs and painting pictures and telling each other stories about love and its mysteries and marvelous properties, myths to keep morale up—maybe one day it'll materialize. But I can say it ten times a day, a hundred times, 'I love you,' to anyone and anything, to a woman, to a pair of pruning shears. I've said it without meaning it at all, taken love's name in vain and gone dismally unpunished. Love will never be real, or if it is, it has no power. No power. There's only covetousness, and if what we covet can't be won with gentle words—and often it can't—then there is force.”

LoveArtLiarsCynicalRomantic LoveUnrealHypocritesHelen OyeyemiMr Fox
Book:Mr. Fox
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“Three creaks. She stepped three times. What is the meaning of it? Three creaks, three weeks? If she comes back for her shoes in three days, then I only need to empty them another three times. If it really is three weeks that were meant, what then. If three months, what then. Three years. That's why I had to write it down now. By then I may no longer believe I heard anything in Miri's room.”

WaitingHorrorSadHauntingEndingHelen OyeyemiLast LinesWhite Is For Witching
Book:White Is for Witching
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“What do you think of Poe?" "He's awful. He was obviously . . . what's the term . . . 'disappointed in love' at some point. He probably never smiled again. The pages are just bursting with his longing for women to suffer. If he ever met me he'd probably punch me on the nose." "I think Poe's quite good, actually. The whole casual horror thing. Like someone standing next to you and screaming their head off and you asking them what the fuck and them stopping for a moment to say 'Oh you know, I'm just afraid of Death' and then they keep on with the screaming.”

HorrorDebateDialogueAnalysisMisogynyLiterary CriticismAllusionHelen OyeyemiWhite Is For WitchingEdgar Allen Poe
Book:White Is for Witching
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“Miss Foxe's other passion was fairy tales. She loved the transformations in them. Everybody was in disguise, or on their way to becoming something else. And all was overcome by order in the end. Love could not prevail if the order of the tale didn't wish it, and neither could hatred, nor grief, nor cunning. If you were the first of three siblings, then you were going to make a big mistake, and that was that. If you were the third sibling, you couldn't fail.”

StorytellingDisguiseFairy TalesLiteraryTropesHelen OyeyemiMr FoxTransformations
Book:Mr. Fox
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