25 Americanah Quotes about Love, Life, and Space in Between

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the story of a Nigerian girl named Ifemelu. The book traces her life in both Nigeria and America. In doing so it touches on a large assortment of crucial topics governing human life, including race, immigrant experiences in the U.S, existentialism, and love.

Here are 25 quotes from the book that talk about life, love, and everything in between.

Americanah Quotes about Love, Life, and the Space in Between:―

1.

It’s strange how I have felt, with every major event that has occurred in my life, that you were the only person who would understand.

2.

There was something in him, lighter than ego but darker than insecurity, that needed constant buffing, polishing, waxing.

3.

You know it was love at first sight for both of us,” he said.
“For both of us? Is it by force? Why are you speaking for me?”
“I’m just stating a fact. Stop struggling.”
“Yes, it’s a fact,” she said.
“What?”
“I love you.”

4.

You looked like the kind of person who will do something because you want to, and not because everyone else is doing it.

5.

Why did people ask “What is it about?” as if a novel had to be about only one thing.

6.

There was a feeling I wanted to feel that I did not feel.

7.

The problem is that there are many qualified people who are not where they are supposed to be because they won’t lick anybody’s ass, or they don’t know which ass to lick or they don’t even know how to lick an ass. I’m lucky to be licking the right ass.” She smiled

8.

But Nature is unfair to women. An act is done by two people, but if there are any consequences, one person carries it alone.

9.

It brought to him a disorienting strangeness, because his mind had not changed at the same pace as his life, and he felt a hollow space between himself and the person he was supposed to be.

10.

She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.

11.

It seemed so natural, to talk to him about the odd things. She had never done that before. The trust, so sudden and yet so complete, and the intimacy, frightened her.

12.

She liked that he wore their relationship so boldly, like a brightly colored shirt.

13.

My advice is that you wait. You can love without making love. It is a beautiful way of showing your feelings but it brings responsibility, great responsibility, and there is no rush.

14.

How quickly a loved one could become a stranger. Where did the love go? Perhaps real love was familial, somehow linked to blood, since love for children did not die as romantic love did.

15.

She had a formidable air; a person who went about setting everyone and everything right in the world.

16.

“You make me shy,” he said.
“Are you serious? Because you make me shy.”
“I don’t believe anything makes you shy,” he said.”

17.

I don’t want to be a sweetheart. I want to be the fucking love of your life,” Curt said with a force that startled her.

18.

And, in the pride in her eyes, he saw a shinier, better version of himself.

19.

He had discovered that grief did not dim with time; it was instead a volatile state of being.

20.

And it struck Obinze that, a few years ago, they were attending weddings, now it was christenings and soon it would be funerals. They would die. They would all die after trudging through lives in which they were neither happy nor unhappy.