“You can't write a script in your mind and then force yourself to follow it. You have to let yourself be.”

“I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.”

“Eugene has to stop doing God's job. God is big enough to do his own job. If God will judge our father for choosing to follow the way of our ancestors, then let God do the judging, not Eugene.”

“You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?” Aunty Ifeka said. “Your life belongs to you and you alone.”

“People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It’s exciting to have to deal with God as a rival.”

“Papa sat down at the table and poured his tea from the china tea set with pink flowers on the edges. I waited for him to ask Jaja and me to take a sip, as he always did. A love sip, he called it, because you shared the little things you loved with the people you love.”

“You Americans, always peering under people's beds to look for communism.”