FastSaying

I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.


Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive sto...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE I don't know if I have a favorite color.
KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl.
KATE MIDDLETON I am a collector of dolls and doll parts. I'm rarely creeped out by most dolls, either in real l...
ELLEN DATLOW A quote isn't a quote until that quote is quotably quoted by and official Quotesman
I AM TIMEPIECE The internet has too much information out there for you to ask a dumb question
I AM TIMEPIECE I am no longer a rare breed, I am an endangered species
I AM TIMEPIECE I wish there was an edit button on Life because sometimes we don't realize the mistakes we've made u...
I AM TIMEPIECE Life are full of memories, capture them
I AM TIMEPIECE I don't fit in because I was born to stand out
I AM TIMEPIECE It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have to be seen to be believed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Grief is the price we pay for love.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses w...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your s...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are g...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the man...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II These wretched babies don't come until they are ready.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and o...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Inspiration comes from the world around me. I'm an inveterate eavesdropper.
JENNY NIMMO We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want...
PRINCE WILLIAM Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ...
CATHERINE THE GREAT With the right help, children have a good chance of overcoming their issues while they are still you...
KATE MIDDLETON As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
KING SOLOMON I don't mind a big fascinator. I think there is more scope for artwork in a fascinator rather th...
ZARA PHILLIPS I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think I'll still be riding at 40. There are a couple of people who are still riding ...
ZARA PHILLIPS My dad's not a big talker.
ZARA PHILLIPS My dad can be pretty critical sometimes.
ZARA PHILLIPS I'd love to have kids, but not at the moment.
ZARA PHILLIPS You cannot make horses 'safe.'
ZARA PHILLIPS Virtually everything that gets printed about me is wrong anyway, so it doesn't really matter wha...
ZARA PHILLIPS It's stupid to say that I don't like being in the public eye, but I don't like doing stu...
ZARA PHILLIPS I'm an affectionate person.
ZARA PHILLIPS People still text me to say that there is something about me in the paper, and what really annoys me...
ZARA PHILLIPS Sometimes people will come up in the street and say: 'My daughter loves you, will you sign an au...
ZARA PHILLIPS Taking part in an Olympics on home ground is something you dream about.
ZARA PHILLIPS My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think about the media.
ZARA PHILLIPS I love the sport and being competitive.
ZARA PHILLIPS The horses are all characters, all personalities. Some you get along with, some you don't, some ...
ZARA PHILLIPS I hate having my picture taken.
ZARA PHILLIPS Unfortunately in sport it's either good or bad. You've got to take the highs and the lows.
ZARA PHILLIPS My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, real...
ZARA PHILLIPS The senior members of the royal family work very hard and I don't think people quite realise tha...
ZARA PHILLIPS In our sport you're very lucky to find a horse of a lifetime and I found mine relatively early. ...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don...
ZARA PHILLIPS I think Facebook's dangerous. So many people I know get into trouble with Facebook... I'd ra...
ZARA PHILLIPS I'm not a princess anyway so I find that quite weird to be labelled as one.
ZARA PHILLIPS Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.
KING JAMES I My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them...
MARIE ANTOINETTE I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me they are more fascina...
WALLIS SIMPSON PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' bea...
WALLIS SIMPSON I am so anxious for you not to abdicate and I think the fact that you do is going to put me in the w...
WALLIS SIMPSON I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.
WALLIS SIMPSON I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me.
WALLIS SIMPSON A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compe...
WALLIS SIMPSON Never explain, never complain.
WALLIS SIMPSON You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.
WALLIS SIMPSON I have always had the courage for the new things that life sometimes offers.
WALLIS SIMPSON For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.
WALLIS SIMPSON Forgive me for not writing but this man is exhausting.
WALLIS SIMPSON You can never be too rich or too thin.
WALLIS SIMPSON A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
KING SOLOMON It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most...
FREDERICK THE GREAT Addiction is a hugely complex and destructive disease, and its impact can be simply devastating. All...
KATE MIDDLETON There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
MARIE ANTOINETTE I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all.
MARIE ANTOINETTE I think change needs to be egoless. It's not about my leaving my fingerprints or a legacy. It...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.
QUEEN VICTORIA I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman.
KING JAMES I I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
CHARLES V I feel very, very lucky that George has got a little sister.
KATE MIDDLETON It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country;...
MARIE ANTOINETTE I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
AUGUSTUS A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.
FREDERICK THE GREAT

More Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Sometimes novels are considered 'important' in the way medicine is - they taste terrible and...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE The knowledge of cooking does not come pre-installed in a vagina.
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile ego...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change.
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Some people ask: “Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or s...
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE I've always been curious about how much of our cultural baggage we bring to what and how we read...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE I am a person who believes in asking questions, in not conforming for the sake of conforming. I am d...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Alexa and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You're caged in. Your hair rules you. You didn't go runn...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing...
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Successful fiction does not need to be validated by 'real life'; I cringe whenever a writer ...
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Each of my novels has come from a different place, and the processes are not always entirely conscio...
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it wa...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the peo...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Non-fiction, and in particular the literary memoir, the stylised recollection of personal experience...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE I would come, many years later, to understand why 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is considered '...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE His optimism blinded her. He was full of plans. "I have an idea!" he said often. She imagined him as...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE The problem with looking in the mirror is that you never know how you will feel about what you see. ...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE She wanted to ask him why they were all strangers who shared the same last name.
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE These Nigerians
have been raised to think of women as inherently guilty. And they have been rai...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Because when there is true equality, resentment does not exist.
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Later Ginika said, “You could have just said Ngozi is your tribal name and Ifemelu is your jungle ...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE He turned to her and said, “About time,” when the train finally creaked in, with the familiarity...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Greatness depends on where you are coming from.
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in 'real' African culture, be...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE I think I'm ridiculously fortunate. I consider myself a Nigerian - that's home; my sensibili...
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?” Aunty Ifeka said. “Your...
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE How was it possible to miss something you no longer wanted?
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CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive sto...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE He felt a hollow space between himself and the person he was supposed to be.
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE I am just as human as the man.
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE If we do something over and over, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over, it beco...
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE I'm trying to tell you that there's a new wave on the continent. A new wave of openness and ...
NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA I can take hardship. I can sleep on the cold floor anytime. I can also sleep on a feather bed.
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NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA No one can fight corruption for Nigerians except Nigerians. Everyone has to be committed from the to...
NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA One in four sub-Saharan Africans is Nigerian, and it has 140 million dynamic people - chaotic people...
NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA