The Thing Around Your Neck

"She could not complain about not having shoes when the person she was talking to had no legs"

"How can you love somebody and yet want to manage the amount of happiness that person is allowed?"

"You wanted to feel disdain, to show it as you brought his order, because white people who liked Africa too much and those who liked Africa too little were the same—condescending"

"Is it a good life, Daddy?” Nkiru has taken to asking lately on the phone, with that faint, vaguely troubling American accent. It is not good or bad, I tell her, it is simply mine. And that is what matters."

"She imagines the cocoa brown of Nnedis eyes lighting up, her lips moving quickly, explaining that riots do not happen in a vacuum, that religion and ethnicity are often politicized because the ruler is safe if the hungry"

"“Nnamabia was staring at his yellow-orange rice as he spoke, and when he looked up I saw my brother’s eyes fill with tears—my worldly brother—and I felt a tenderness for him that I could not have explained had I been asked to."