Helen Oyeyemi quote: "I don't despise 'Don Quixote,' but it is a book I don't... get. I'll have to come back it. Maybe there'll be a gateway story that opens it up for me; that happened for me with 'Paradise Lost' and the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy."

I’m never sad when a friend goes far away, because whichever city or country that friend goes to, ...
HELEN OYEYEMI

The first book I really loved was 'Little Women' - I'd have given anything for Beth to h...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Dickinson is my hero because she was a joker, because she would never explain, because as a poet she...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I love taking things out of context and playing with them and chopping up rules.
HELEN OYEYEMI

Authors I've longed to write like - but realize I actually can't even begin to - include Poe...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Imagine having a mother who worries that you read too much. The question is, what is it that's suppo...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I tend to prioritize emotional realism above the known laws of time and space, and when you do that,...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I don't feel there's a difference between the real world and the fairy-tale world. They cont...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I do love Shirley Jackson, but I don't deserve to be named in connection with her. I remember re...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Juju is not enough to protect you. Everything you have I will turn against you. I'll turn sugar bitt...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don't have names.
HELEN OYEYEMI

...there’s a part of my heart or mind, or some spot where the two meet, a spot that isn’t mine b...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Sometimes I feel weird about time. Sometimes I feel that it doesn't go in the order we perceive ...
HELEN OYEYEMI

The way that people feel changes everything. Feelings are forces. They cause us to time travel. And ...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Please tell a story about a girl who gets away.”
I would, even if I had to adapt one, even if...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Her heart was heavy because it was open, and so things filled it, and so things rushed out of it, bu...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I feel like an old lady; my hero is Miss Marple.
HELEN OYEYEMI

She was only fifteen. At that age embarassment is something you can actually die of.
HELEN OYEYEMI

He answered with a smile. The darkest and most malignant I had ever seen, too strong to be voluntary...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I would like to have nothing to do with you for hours on end and then come back and find you, come b...
HELEN OYEYEMI

All through dinner Arturo and I held hands under the table like a couple of kids, and that made the ...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Solitary people, these book lovers. I think it's swell that there are people you don't have to worry...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I think I started writing about identity, and I used to believe that identity is the story. But now ...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I've always felt happy in my own company. It's only when I get around other people that thin...
HELEN OYEYEMI

This girl had been looking on with her hair hanging over her face, only partly hiding a cruel-lookin...
HELEN OYEYEMI

He honestly expected her to believe that she could make a bad offering and her ancestors wouldn't mi...
HELEN OYEYEMI

She had a new bracelet on, stacked with emeralds brighter than her eyes. I hate rich people.
HELEN OYEYEMI

With growing disbelief, Jess yet again felt herself slipping into the gap - that gap of perception b...
HELEN OYEYEMI

The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it’s ready an...
HELEN OYEYEMI

And without further argument he unsheathed the sword and cleaved Miss Foxe's head from her neck. He ...
HELEN OYEYEMI

It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing t...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Would that be dangerous, to not look while being looked at?
HELEN OYEYEMI

The water is very green and has a sweet taste, both boys wrote in their diaries, at different...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Aside from infrequent comments ("Cheer up, love," or "It's not Hallo'ween"), no one wondered why a t...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Jess couldn't stop spitting out words, because they were words like blades to hurt, and if she swall...
HELEN OYEYEMI

With boys there was a fundamental assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but mor...
HELEN OYEYEMI

I love character and voice, and my favourite books have been the ones in which I've become compl...
HELEN OYEYEMI

It turns out that the average annoyed American only needs to pull three terrible faces before she fe...
HELEN OYEYEMI

And that was what all the expressions felt like— masks. I didn’t believe them. They were too tho...
HELEN OYEYEMI

Mice are very difficult to do front on, but they have nicely human little hands and feet, and whiske...
HELEN CRAIG

Your sweetheart calls you by another's name. His eyes linger too long on your best friend. He ta...
HELEN FISHER

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian ...
HELEN KELLER

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life o...
HELEN KELLER

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.
HELEN KELLER

The worst constructed play is a Bach fugue when compared to life.
HELEN HAYES

Actors cannot choose the manner in which they are born. Consequently, it is the one gesture in their...
HELEN HAYES

Actors work and slave and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end.
HELEN HAYES

Stardom can be a gilded slavery.
HELEN HAYES

The good die young but not always. The wicked prevail but not consistently. I am confused by life, a...
HELEN HAYES

Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture.
HELEN HAYES

There's a little vanity chair that Charlie gave me the first Christmas we knew each other. I'...
HELEN HAYES

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born...
HELEN HAYES

The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity - love. And the story of a love is not importan...
HELEN HAYES

I cry out for order and find it only in art.
HELEN HAYES

Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does.
HELEN HAYES

I'm leaving the screen because I don't think I am very good in the pictures and I have this ...
HELEN HAYES

When traveling with someone, take large does of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee.
HELEN HAYES

The story of a love is not important-what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps...
HELEN HAYES

One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it.
HELEN HAYES

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when boo...
HELEN HAYES

Mere longevity is a good thing for those who watch Life from the side lines. For those who play the ...
HELEN HAYES

Everybody starts at the top, and then has the problem of staying there. Lasting accomplishment, howe...
HELEN HAYES

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
HELEN HAYES

Why do we feel jealousy? Therapists often regard the demon as a scar of childhood trauma or a sympto...
HELEN FISHER

Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place ...
HELEN KELLER

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.
HELEN KELLER

It is not possible for civilization to flow backwards while there is youth in the world. Youth may b...
HELEN KELLER

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable r...
HELEN KELLER

Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!
HELEN KELLER

College isn't the place to go for ideas.
HELEN KELLER

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.
HELEN KELLER

As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
HELEN KELLER

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often ...
HELEN KELLER

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you k...
HELEN KELLER

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.
HELEN KELLER

I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of ye...
HELEN KELLER

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have li...
HELEN KELLER

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within th...
HELEN KELLER

It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I ha...
HELEN KELLER

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.
HELEN KELLER

I've been to L.A. before, and I love the sunshine and the fact that people seem so genuinely nic...
HELEN GEORGE

Of all the foods we share, there is nothing more primordial than meat. It's no surprise that mea...
HELEN FISHER

The Prime Minister is head of team but its not a one woman act. I've been called all those thing...
HELEN CLARK

From my studies of genetics and neuroscience I have come to believe that people fall into four broad...
HELEN FISHER

I was writing an earnest novel about cruises in the Caribbean and I just started writing 'Bridge...
HELEN FIELDING

I hope there will be continued U.K. investment in human spaceflight to enable Britain to benefit fro...
HELEN SHARMAN

Between lovers a little confession is a dangerous thing.
HELEN ROWLAND

It is easier to keep half a dozen lovers guessing than to keep one lover after he has stopped guessi...
HELEN ROWLAND

As social animals, we need to exchange juicy tales about someone - to connect with one another. For ...
HELEN FISHER

I guess the only way to stop divorce is to stop marriage.
HELEN ROLAND

Blushing is thought to be linked to increased levels of norepinephrine in the brain, which may be as...
HELEN FISHER

Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. (Helen Schucman over 7 years wrote the Course...
HELEN SCHUCMAN

Women are better at reading body language everywhere in the world. As a matter of fact, it's ass...
HELEN FISHER

I love 'Call the Midwife'; it's an absolute gem of a programme. Filming the Christmas sp...
HELEN GEORGE

A man can become so accustomed to the thought of his own faults that he will begin to cherish them a...
HELEN ROWLAND

The hardest task of a girl's life, nowadays, is to prove to a man that his intentions are serious.
HELEN ROWLAND

Why does a man take it for granted that a girl who flirts with him wants him to kiss her -- when, ni...
HELEN ROWLAND

It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her son -- and another woman twenty minutes to make...
HELEN ROWLAND

Some women can be fooled all of the time, and all women can be fooled some of the time, but the same...
HELEN ROWLAND

There is very little difference between men and women in space.
HELEN SHARMAN

It's rather fun writing a female spy, because she has so much more kit. Bond never carried a hai...
HELEN FIELDING

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others
HELEN KELLER

The story of a love is not important -- what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perh...
HELEN HAYES

There is only one terminal dignity -- love.
HELEN HAYES

The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of t...
HELEN KELLER

There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignor...
HELEN FRANKENTHALER

Woman! The peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch, and the...
HELEN ROWLAND

What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary wh...
HELEN TERRY

A fool and her money are soon courted.
HELEN ROWLAND

When you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must hate to work for a living.
HELEN ROWLAND

After marriage, a woman's sight becomes so keen that she can see right through her husband without l...
HELEN ROWLAND

Before marriage, a man will go home and lie awake all night thinking about something you said; after...
HELEN ROWLAND

Marriage is the miracle that transforms a kiss from a pleasure into a duty.
HELEN ROWLAND

Marriage is the operation by which a woman's vanity and a man's egotism are extracted without an ana...
HELEN ROWLAND

When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the i...
HELEN ROWLAND

No girl who is going to marry need bother to win a college degree; she just naturally becomes a Mast...
HELEN ROWLAND

Today, most women are surrounded by ingenious gadgets. They don't grow the peas or raise the chi...
HELEN FISHER

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because...
HELEN KELLER

A child must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with ...
HELEN KELLER

When a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets t...
HELEN ROWLAND

Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through se...
HELEN KELLER

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the childr...
HELEN KELLER

I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.
HELEN KELLER

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
HELEN KELLER

The best way out is always through.
HELEN KELLER

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -...
HELEN KELLER

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know....
HELEN KELLER

Change has to come for life to struggle forward.
HELEN HOLLICK

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
HELEN KELLER

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that ...
HELEN KELLER

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another fa...
HELEN FIELDING

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.
HELEN KELLER

The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision.
HELEN KELLER

A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.
HELEN ROWLAND

The tenderest spot in a man's make-up is sometimes the bald spot on top of his head.
HELEN ROWLAND

There's so much saint in the worst of them, and so much devil in the best of them, that a woman who'...
HELEN ROWLAND

There are only two kinds of men; the dead and the deadly.
HELEN ROWLAND

Somehow a bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.
HELEN ROWLAND

Marrying an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.
HELEN ROWLAND

A Bachelor of Arts is one who makes love to a lot of women, and yet has the art to remain a bachelor...
HELEN ROWLAND

Now I feel as if I should succeed in doing something in mathematics, although I cannot see why it is...
HELEN KELLER

The follies which a man regrets most in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the o...
HELEN ROWLAND

Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity
HELEN SCHUCMAN

When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we d...
HELEN KELLER

Call the bald man, Boy; make the sage thy toy; greet the youth with solemn face; praise the fat man ...
HELEN ROWLAND

We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.
HELEN KELLER

When the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is giving in a form each mind that seek...
HELEN SCHUCMAN

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
HELEN KELLER

Knowledge is power. Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge -- broad, deep knowled...
HELEN KELLER

Dreams show you that you have the power...
HELEN SCHUCMAN

Failing to be there when a man wants her is a woman's greatest sin, except to be there when he doesn...
HELEN ROWLAND

The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.
HELEN KELLER

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the...
HELEN KELLER

What a man calls his conscience is merely the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction afte...
HELEN ROWLAND

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can...
HELEN KELLER

To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman...
HELEN ROWLAND

I know for me the subject of how to be in a relationship is precious and complicated and challenging...
HELEN HUNT

France may claim the happiest marriages in the world, but the happiest divorces in the world are mad...
HELEN ROWLAND

Love, the quest; marriage, the conquest; divorce, the inquest.
HELEN ROWLAND

When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn't a sign that they don't understand one another, but...
HELEN ROWLAND

Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nat...
HELEN ROWLAND

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whol...
HELEN KELLER

I know that faith made my life possible and that of many others like me... Reason hardly warranted A...
HELEN KELLER

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with th...
HELEN HAYES

Humility is like underwear; essential, but indecent if it shows.
HELEN NIELSEN

Nothing is interesting if you are not interested.
HELEN MACINNESS

When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of ano...
HELEN KELLER

To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is ...
HELEN ROWLAND

A man's desire for a son is usually nothing but the wish to duplicate himself in order that such a r...
HELEN ROWLAND

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.
HELEN KELLER

My darkness has been filled with the light of intelligence, and behold, the outer day-lit world was ...
HELEN KELLER

Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have live...
HELEN KELLER

As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens th...
HELEN KELLER

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
HELEN KELLER

If you rest, you rust.
HELEN HAYES

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes ...
HELEN KELLER

A widow is a fascinating being with the flavor of maturity, the spice of experience, the piquancy of...
HELEN ROWLAND

Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts and his higher nature -- ...
HELEN ROWLAND

One man's folly is often another man's wife.
HELEN ROWLAND

Museums and art stores are also sources of pleasure and inspiration. Doubtless it will seem strange ...
HELEN KELLER

I have often been asked, Do not people bore you? I do not understand quite what that means. I suppos...
HELEN KELLER

Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.
HELEN KELLER

We may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the...
HELEN KELLER

I used to store my anger and it affected my play. Now I get it out. I'm never rude to my playing par...
HELEN ALFREDSSON

Don't waste time trying to break a man's heart; be satisfied if you can just manage to chip it in a ...
HELEN ROWLAND

In olden times, sacrifices were made at the altar, a practice which is still very much practiced.
HELEN ROWLAND

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king am...
HELEN KELLER

God himself is not secure, having given man dominion over his work.
HELEN KELLER

When a man makes a woman his wife, it's the highest compliment he can pay her, and it's usually the ...
HELEN ROWLAND

No man can understand why a woman shouldn't prefer a good reputation to a good time.
HELEN ROWLAND

If a woman is sufficiently ambitious, determined and gifted - there is practically nothing she can't...
HELEN LAWRENSON

Humility is like underwear, essential, but indecent if it shows
HELEN NIELSEN

The best educated human being is the one who understands most about the life in which he is placed.
HELEN KELLER

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and becaus...
HELEN KELLER

Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow
HELEN KELLER

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free s...
HELEN KELLER

I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself, my work and my God.
HELEN KELLER

If it is true that the violin is the most perfect of musical instruments, then Greek is the violin o...
HELEN KELLER

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the he...
HELEN KELLER

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often ...
HELEN KELLER

I don't despise 'Don Quixote,' but it is a book I don't... get. I'll have to come back it. Maybe there'll be a gateway story that opens it up for me; that happened for me with 'Paradise Lost' and the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy.

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Helen Oyeyemi

I don't despise 'Don Quixote,' but it is a book I don't... get. I'll have to come back it. Maybe there'll be a gateway story that opens it up for me; that happened for me with 'Paradise Lost' and the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy.

Helen Oyeyemi

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