Latest Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• When I'm in a good mood I like to cook. But I don't like saying it in public because I find myself being resentful of the idea; "Now you will make a good wife. You can cook, right?" So when people ask me I go, "No, I don't like cooking!"

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  People, Wife, Cooking

  "Meet Beyoncé's Favorite Novelist". Interview with Keziah Weir, www.elle.com. February 15, 2014.

• I think it's important to humanize history; fiction can help us remember. A lot of books I've read in the past have been so much more important than textbooks - there is an emotional connection with one particular person. I'm very much of a research-is-important type of fiction writer, even for contemporary fiction. I wrote about blogs in America and I've never blogged. But I read many, many blogs - usually about feminist things, or about race, or about hair.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Book, Past, Emotional

  "Meet Beyoncé's Favorite Novelist". Interview with Keziah Weir, www.elle.com. February 15, 2014.

• Honesty. And I just really think there's a fundamental friendship that needs to exist, whether it's a lover, whether it's a sister...there's just this connection both people need to be effortlessly themselves.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Honesty, Thinking, People

  "Meet Beyoncé's Favorite Novelist" by Keziah Weir, www.elle.com. February 15, 2014.

• When the writing is going well, I'm obsessive. I don't shower, I don't take phone calls, I hardly respond to text messages, I don't do email. I take breaks only to read, and usually I read poetry. When it's not going well, I just lie in bed and eat chocolate.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Lying, Writing, Chocolate

  "Meet Beyoncé's Favorite Novelist" by Keziah Weir, www.elle.com. February 15, 2014.

• My characters are usually composites. I wish I could pretend that I make up all of these characters, but no. I steal from people. But people will say to me, "Oh, that's me!" and I'm thinking, no, that's not you!

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Character, Thinking, People

  Source: www.elle.com

• My grandfather died in the war, my family went through the war, and it affected my parents in really profound ways. I've always wanted to write about that period - in some ways to digest it for myself, something that defined me but that I didn't go through.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  War, Writing, Profound

  "Half of a Yellow Sun". Interview with Rina Palta, www.motherjones.com. October 24, 2006.

• If the government doesn't fund education, which they often don't, students are going to stay home and not go to school. It affects them directly. But I'm really not interested in writing explicitly about that. I'm really interested in human beings, and in love, and in family. Somehow, politics comes in.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  School, Home, Writing

  "Half of a Yellow Sun". Interview with Rina Palta, www.motherjones.com. October 24, 2006.

• I am a strong believer in the ability of human beings to change for the better. I am a strong believer in trying to change what we are dissatisfied with.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Strong, Trying, Change For The Better

  "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Continental Divides". Interview with Joseph Klarl, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 14, 2013.

• I don't believe that art and politics or social issues must be separated. In writing about marriage, for example, money can be a big factor, and money is linked to earning, and earning is influenced by politics.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Art, Believe, Writing

  "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Continental Divides". Interview with Joseph Klarl, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 14, 2013.

• I think human beings exist in a social world. I write realistic fiction, and so it isn't that surprising that the social realities of their existence would be part of the story.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Writing, Reality, Thinking

  "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Continental Divides". Interview with Joseph Klarl, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 14, 2013.

• I didn't want to be apologetic about my love story, and I think to be willing to write about love you have to be willing to sound foolish. I wanted to write about foolish and goofy love and different relationships. I wanted to write about interracial relationships in a way that does not pretend as if race does not exist.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Love You, Writing, Thinking

  "The Rumpus Interview With Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie" by Kima Jones, therumpus.net. June 17, 2014.

• I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Writing, Mean, Details

  "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Continental Divides". Interview with Joseph Klarl, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 14, 2013.

• I am interested in challenging the mainstream ideas of what is beautiful and what is acceptable.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Beautiful, Ideas, Challenges

  Interview with Kima Jones, therumpus.net. June 17, 2014.

• I had consumed a lot of American culture, but I was not quite prepared for the reality of American poverty.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Reality, Culture, Poverty

  "The Rumpus Interview With Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie". Interview with Kima Jones, therumpus.net. June 17, 2014.

• One of the things that struck me when I came to the U.S. was discovering American poverty.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Poverty, Discovering, American Poverty

  "The Rumpus Interview With Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie". Interview with Kima Jones, therumpus.net. June 17, 2014.