A library at night is full of sounds: the unread books can't stand it any longer and announce their contents, some boasting, some shy, some devious.

— Helen Oyeyemi

All through dinner Arturo and I held hands under the table like a couple of kids, and that made the dinner quite wonderful, even though Mrs. Fletcher kept staring at Olivia as though committing her to memory. It got so bad that Olivia turned to her husband and said: "Has it happened at last, Gerald? Have I become a curiosity?

— Helen Oyeyemi

And I think I decided not to love Charlie because I thought I had to be rescued. For practical reasons but also as a proof of love. It's better that Charlie and I didn't make an automatic transaction, love exchanged for rescue. All you can do after that is put the love and the rescue up on the shelf, moving them farther and farther back as you make room for all the other items you acquire over the years. This way a ragged stem still grows between us, almost pretty. Though really we should crush it now, before the buds bloom skeletal.

— Helen Oyeyemi

And without further argument he unsheathed the sword and cleaved Miss Foe's head from her neck. He knew what was supposed to happen. He knew that this awkward, whispering creature before him should now transform into a princess - dazzlingly beautiful, free, and made wise by her hardship. That is not what happened.

— Helen Oyeyemi

Aside from infrequent comments ("Cheer up, love," or "It's not Hall'ween"), no one wondered why a teenager was dressed up as a chic governess. Sylvie approved of Mini, even at the same time as she was confused by her. "It's a style at least," she said, and took off her rope of pearls and looped them around Mini's neck.

— Helen Oyeyemi

Because he says he can't stand you, and you act like you can't stand him, and whenever a man and a woman behave like that toward each other, it usually means something's going on.

— Helen Oyeyemi

But also. . . I have plenty of people around me to talk to, and no one to be honest with.

— Helen Oyeyemi

But then, maybe “I don’t believe in you” is the cruelest way to kill a monster.

— 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

First you try to find a reason, try to understand what you've done so wrong you can be sure not to do it anymore. After that you look for signs of a Jekyll and Hyde situation, the good and the bad in a person sifted into separate compartments by some weird accident. Then, gradually, you realize that there isn't a reason, and it isn't two people you're dealing with, just one. The same one every time.

— Helen Oyeyemi