“This was a little house, with a ceiling that kept getting higher and higher, a hot place with no windows. This was anger.”
Helen Oyeyemi“Why do people go to these places, these places that are not for them?It must be that they believe in their night vision. They believe themselves able to draw images up out of the dark.But black wells only yield black water.”
Helen Oyeyemi, White is for Witching“I remember that I used to get lots of books from the library, and 'Little Women' was one of them. And I used to just cross out the parts of it that really upset me because it's such a sad book in so many ways. I'd cross out the parts that upset me, and I would rewrite new endings.”
Helen Oyeyemi“The way that people feel changes everything. Feelings are forces. They cause us to time travel. And to leave ourselves, to leave our bodies. I would be that kind of psychologist who says, 'You're absolutely right - there are monsters under the bed.'”
Helen Oyeyemi“Dickinson is my hero because she was a joker, because she would never explain, because as a poet she confronted pain, dread and death, and because she was capable of speaking of those matters with both levity and seriousness. She's my hero because she was a metaphysical adventurer.”
Helen Oyeyemi“I tend to prioritize emotional realism above the known laws of time and space, and when you do that, it's inevitable that strange things happen. Which can be quite enjoyable, I think.”
Helen Oyeyemi“I was born, and then I was quietly resentful of that fact for a few years...but then I went to a library and it was okay.”
Helen Oyeyemi“With growing disbelief, Jess yet again felt herself slipping into the gap - that gap of perception between what is really happening to a person and what others think is happening.”
Helen Oyeyemi“Whenever they were together they couldn't let sixty of their minutes pass without asking each other what time it was; as if time was a volatile currency that they either possessed or did not possess, when in fact time was more of a fog that rose inexorably over all their words and deeds so that their were either forgotten or misremembered.”
Helen Oyeyemi, What is Not Yours is Not Yours“This was a little house, with a ceiling that kept getting higher and higher, a hot place with no windows. This was anger.”
Helen Oyeyemi“This girl had been looking on with her hair hanging over her face, only partly hiding a cruel-looking scar; her eyes shone with hatred. Not necessarily hatred of your father or of puppets or the other children, but a hatred of make-believe, which did not heal, but was only useful to the people who didn't need it.”
Helen Oyeyemi, What is Not Yours is Not Yours