If the justification for controlling women's bodies were about women themselves, then it would be understandable. If, for example, the reason was 'women should not wear short skirts because they can get cancer if they do.' Instead, the reason is not about women, but about men. Women must be 'covered up' to protect men. I find this deeply dehumanizing because it reduces women to mere props used to manage the appetites of men.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If the sun refuses to rise we will make it rise

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If we don't place the straitjacket of gender roles on young children, we give them space to reach their full potential.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

​If we do something over and over again, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over again, it becomes normal. If only boys are made class monitors, then at some point we will all think, even if unconsciously, that the class monitor has to be a boy. If we keep seeing only men as heads of corporations, it starts to seem 'natural' that only men should be heads of corporations. ​

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If we do something over and over, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over it becomes normal.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If we ran Nigeria like this cell," he said, "we would have no problems in this country. Things are so organized. Our cell has a Chief called General Apache, and he has a second in command. Once you come in, you have to give them some money. If you don't, you're in trouble.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If you followed the media you'd think that everybody in Africa was starving to death, and that's not the case; so it's important to engage with the other Africa.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I have my father's lopsided mouth. When I smile, my lips slope to one side. My doctor sister calls it my cerebral palsy mouth. I am very much a daddy's girl, and even though I would rather my smile wasn't crooked, there is something moving for me about having a mouth exactly like my father's.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I learned a lot about systems of oppression and how they can be blind to one another by talking to black men. I was once talking about gender and a man said to me, "Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being?" This type of question is a way of silencing a person's specific experiences. Of course, I am a human being, but there are particular things that happen to me in the world because I am a woman. This same man, by the way, would often talk about his experience as a black man. (To which I should probably have responded, "Why not your experiences as a man or as a human being? Why a black man?")

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie