70 Powerful Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes To Inspire You
Gallery
One of the most notable Nigerians, Chimamanda is a famed author and activist for gender equality.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian fiction, non-fiction writer and essayist. She moved to the United States in 1996.
She has written several books on issues ranging from feminism to racism to gender stereotypes. Her long-book essay 'We Should All Be Feminists' even inspired a song by Beyonce! She attended Eastern Connecticut State University and completed a master's degree in creative writing from John Hopkins University.
To date she has written six books, including 'Half Of A Yellow Sun' and 'Purple Hibiscus' (which, whilst not an entirely true story, does in places draw on Adichie's own personal experiences and background). In 2008, she was awarded the MacArthur Genius Grant.
She divides her time between the US and Nigeria. She is a community-driven person but she’s not the type to make life choices based on assumptions about race, community, or gender.
Quotes from Chimamanda have become very popular as more and more people have begun to appreciate her work. She believes in empowering girls and women, as well as the community we live in. We have compiled a list of the best Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie quotes, including 'Americanah' quotes and 'The Danger Of A Single Story' quotes.
Here are our favorite Adichie quotes about expression, human rights, gender expectations, and more. Check out these Zadie Smith quotes and Angela Davis quotes for more inspiring quotes.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes On Feminism And Gender Stereotypes
Adiche argues that as a community and society, our job is to teach girls to aspire to exactly the type of freedom we give our men. And we should teach boys about the kind of gender roles we impose on our women.
This way, they will respect the dignity of human beings more than we have until now. Here are some Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie quotes to help you do that.
1. “We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
2. “My own definition is a feminist is a man or a woman who says, ‘yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better.’”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
3. "Marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same?”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
4. “Of course, I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
5. “Never ever accept ‘because you are a woman’ as a reason for doing or not doing anything.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
6. “Never speak of marriage as an achievement.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
7. “I am trying to unlearn many lessons of gender I internalized while growing up. But I sometimes still feel vulnerable in the face of gender expectations.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
8. “Women need to know that they matter. They matter equally.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
9. “The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
10. “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.
11. “And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
12. “Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
13. “We must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
14. “Masculinity is a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
15. “Some people ask: ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’ Because that would be... a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
16. “She refused, protested, spoke up when she felt she was being deprived of land and access because she was female.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
17. “We teach girls shame. ‘Close your legs. Cover yourself.’ We make them feel as though being born female they’re already guilty of something.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
18. “For me, feminism is a movement for which the end goal is to make itself no longer needed.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
19. "I find that I’m lonely in my rage about sexism. And that loneliness informs my rage."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
20. "It’s not about individual women; it’s about a system."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
21. "I don’t want to sit with someone who thinks that women are objects. I just don’t want to."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
22. "I know I’m able to have empathy for men who have been assaulted, who’ve suffered. I don’t need to imagine that they’re my brother or my husband."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
23. “Feminism and femininity are not mutually exclusive."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
24. "I’ve always been the kind of person who thinks that men and women are equal, full stop."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
25. "Feminism for me is not an exclusive little party that you get to go to when you’ve read the right books."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
26. "Teach her that ‘gender roles’ is absolute nonsense."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
27. “I look at the world through eyes that are very alert to gender injustice, and I always will."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
28. “I am interested in challenging the mainstream ideas of what is beautiful and what is acceptable.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
29. “The knowledge of cooking does not come pre-installed...”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
30. “Because when there is true equality, resentment does not exist.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes About People, Race And Culture
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie quotes always bring about an emotion of compassion and acceptance. Here are some Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie quotes about girls, human dignity, race, community, belonging, and assumptions to help you understand that.
31. “To have money, it seemed, was to be consumed by money.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
32. “Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanise.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
33. “Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
34. “Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
35. “There was a feeling I wanted to feel that I did not feel.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
36. “Being defiant can be a good thing sometimes. ”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
37. “We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. ”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
38. “You could say anything at any time to anyone."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
39. “I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
40. “I own things I like, but nothing inanimate that I treasure in a deeply consuming way.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
41. “I think people are frightened of saying what they think, and I think that's a bad thing for society.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
42. "For progress to be made, I think it’s necessary to reach out to people who don’t necessarily agree."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
43. "First we need to calm down, breathe, and get over ourselves.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
44. “Evil is tolerable if purged of coarseness.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
45. “I didn't know I was even supposed to have issues until I came to America.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
46. “I'm chasing you. I'm going to chase you until you give this a chance.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
47. “How was it possible to miss something you no longer wanted?”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
48. “This was love, to be eager for tomorrow.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
49. “The only reason race matters is because of racism.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
50. “You deserve to take up space.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
51. “There are people who dislike you because you do not dislike yourself.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
52. “When we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
53. “Your life belongs to you and you alone.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
54. "The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
55. “Why did people ask 'What is it about?' as if a novel had to be about only one thing.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
56. "Our histories cling to us. We are shaped by where we come from."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
57. "To choose to writes is to reject silence."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
58. "You can't write a script in your mind and then force yourself to follow it.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
59. “People will selectively use 'tradition' to justify anything.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
60. “She always chose peace over truth.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
61. “I think you travel to search and you come back ‘home’ to find yourself there.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
62. “The manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
63. “Your standard ideologies will not always fit your life.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
64. "It is easy to romanticize poverty, to see poor people as inherently lacking agency and will."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
65. “If you start thinking about being likable, you are not going to tell your story honestly.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
66. “How can we resist exploitation if we don’t have the tools to understand exploitation.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
67. “It was the exaggerated gratitude that came with immigrant insecurity.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
68. “I am a person who believes in asking questions, I am not conforming for the sake of conforming.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
69. “Racism should never have happened and so you don’t get a cookie for reducing it.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
70. “I like politics and history and am happiest when having a good argument about ideas.”
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 70 powerful Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie quotes to inspire you, then why not take a look at these Zora Neale Hurston quotes and bell hooks quotes too?
We Want Your Photos!
More for You
See All
Bachelor of Science specializing in Human Anatomy
Joan AgieBachelor of Science specializing in Human Anatomy
With 3+ years of research and content writing experience across several niches, especially on education, technology, and business topics. Joan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Anatomy from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria, and has worked as a researcher and writer for organizations across Nigeria, the US, the UK, and Germany. Joan enjoys meditation, watching movies, and learning new languages in her free time.
Disclaimer
1) Kidadl is independent and to make our service free to you the reader we are supported by advertising. We hope you love our recommendations for products and services! What we suggest is selected independently by the Kidadl team. If you purchase using the Buy Now button we may earn a small commission. This does not influence our choices. Prices are correct and items are available at the time the article was published but we cannot guarantee that on the time of reading. Please note that Kidadl is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. We also link to other websites, but are not responsible for their content.
2) At Kidadl, we strive to recommend the very best activities and events. We will always aim to give you accurate information at the date of publication - however, information does change, so it’s important you do your own research, double-check and make the decision that is right for your family. We recognise that not all activities and ideas are appropriate for all children and families or in all circumstances. Our recommended activities are based on age but these are a guide. We recommend that these ideas are used as inspiration, that ideas are undertaken with appropriate adult supervision, and that each adult uses their own discretion and knowledge of their children to consider the safety and suitability. Kidadl cannot accept liability for the execution of these ideas, and parental supervision is advised at all times, as safety is paramount. Anyone using the information provided by Kidadl does so at their own risk and we can not accept liability if things go wrong.
3) Because we are an educational resource, we have quotes and facts about a range of historical and modern figures. We do not endorse the actions of or rhetoric of all the people included in these collections, but we think they are important for growing minds to learn about under the guidance of parents or guardians.