Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

There can be an extremist idea of purity. It's so easy to fall afoul of the ridiculously high standard set there.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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Quotes to Explore

• I was probably never going to get to do the kind of things dramatically that I really wanted to do, so I returned to theater from time to time, and to write, and produce. It's by no means sour grapes.

  

  Larry Hovis
  • Time
  • Kind
  • Never

• Having a book censored means something. It means you have deeply offended one or more people who felt they needed to protect unsuspecting readers from your inflammatory words, thoughts, and images.

  

  Felice Picano
  • People
  • Book
  • Words

• We as women have a voice and we are decision makers in what film to see. We always support our boyfriends and husbands by going to see the male dominated films, but we don't compel them to see films with female casts.

  

  Octavia Spencer
  • Women
  • Support
  • Decision

• Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.

  

  Abbas Kiarostami
  • Life
  • Time
  • Opportunity

• In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.

  

  Quentin Crisp
  • Time
  • Live
  • Universe

• The things that have really gotten confusing to me is how you balance the desires of your publishers to produce things on a schedule, and people are always sort of giving you ideas on what you should follow up with or how you should proceed next and things like that.

  

  Paolo Bacigalupi
  • People
  • Up
  • Giving

• I learned early on that one of the secrets of campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. I would always look ahead and speak to the person coming toward me. If I knew them I would call them by name, but even if I didn't I would still speak to them.

  

  Sam Walton
  • People
  • Leadership
  • Name

• Women should wear clothing. Clothing shouldn't wear them.

  

  Rachel Roy
  • Women
  • Wear
  • Clothing

• I was born a proud daughter of Pakistan, though like all Swatis I thought of myself first as a Swati and Pashtun, before Pakistani.

  

  Malala Yousafzai
  • Proud
  • Myself
  • Thought

• We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love.

  

  R. D. Laing
  • Love
  • Destroying
  • Effectively

• I went through a lot of phases and studied many religions. I am not into religion, I am spiritual.

  

  Ja Rule
  • Spiritual
  • Religion
  • Phases

• I'm not that ambitious any more. I just like my privacy. I wish I really wasn't talked about at all.

  

  Barbra Streisand
  • Wish
  • Privacy
  • I Wish

• I love to get a massage but I'm quite a baby with it. I don't like them too hard or anyone walking on me or anything. When it's good, it's the best thing ever. When it's bad, it's an hour of absolute agony.

  

  Lara Stone
  • Good
  • Love
  • Bad

• What's more important to 'SNL': comedy or buzz? To the writers, players and guest hosts, it's probably the former; to Lorne Michaels and the suits at NBC, it's ultimately probably the latter.

  

  Rachel Sklar
  • Important
  • Comedy
  • Suits

• I write about the trials and triumphs of contemporary life - and often the readers see themselves between the lines of the story.

  

  Karen Kingsbury
  • Life
  • Story
  • Trials

• I'm a little bit of a control freak.

  

  Harlan Coben
  • Control
  • Little
  • Freak

• I don't go, 'I'm in the papers all the time,' because there are loads of people in the papers all the time. Sometimes I'm still like, 'Ooh, look- there's me!' I'm never like, 'Wow, look at me on the bus.' You have to be a bit grounded about things like that.

  

  Kate Moss
  • People
  • Time
  • Me

• In Henry Adams, I discovered not only the prototype of the modern thinker but also someone who is more interesting: a viper-toothed, puling, supercilious crank, thwarted in ambition, aging gracelessly, mad at the cosmos, and ashamed of his own jejune ideals. He is nevertheless very dear to me.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Ambition
  • Modern
  • Ideals

• I go into Daunt Books in Marylebone every couple of weeks. My wife Sara demolishes books, but I only buy stuff occasionally. I like boys' things, spies and the Cold War.

  

  Noel Gallagher Oasis
  • War
  • Wife
  • Couple

• It's like a runner or a swimmer training all the time. I sing every day.

  

  Burton Cummings The Guess Who
  • Time
  • Training

• Seemingly innocuous language like 'Oh, I'm flexible' or 'What do you want to do tonight?' has a dark computational underbelly that should make you think twice. It has the veneer of kindness about it, but it does two deeply alarming things. First, it passes the cognitive buck: 'Here's a problem, you handle it.' Second, by not stating your preferences, it invites the others to simulate or imagine them. And as we have seen, the simulation of the minds of others is one of the biggest computational challenges a mind or machine can ever face.

  

  Brian Christian
  • Mind
  • Language
  • Challenges

• Until I started doing standup, there were some very bleak days.

  

  Larry David
  • Doing
  • Very
  • Bleak

• There can be an extremist idea of purity. It's so easy to fall afoul of the ridiculously high standard set there.

  

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • High
  • Fall