Top 70 Oyinkan Braithwaite Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “You can’t sit on the fence forever.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

2. “It’s because she is beautiful, you know. That’s all it is. They don’t really care about the rest of it. She gets a pass at life.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

3. “That’s how it has always been. Ayoola would break a glass, and I would receive the blame for giving her the drink. Ayoola would fail a class, and I would be blamed for not coaching her. Ayoola would take an apple and leave the store without paying for it, and I would be blamed for letting her get hungry.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

4. “Murderers and victims. Every one of them. ‘The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

5. “Have you heard this one before? Two girls walk into a room. The room is in a flat. The flat is on the third floor. In the room is the dead body of an adult male. How do they get the body to the ground floor without being seen?”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

6. “Is this how he sees her? As an exotic beauty? I console myself with the knowledge that even the most beautiful flowers wither and die.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

7. “I am a maga – a fool who has been taken advantage of.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

8. “My heart drops to the floor, but there is no time to pick it back up.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

9. “He no longer exists for the online world; he can no longer exist for me. He is beyond my reach now in death, as he would have been in life.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

10. “I am more haunted by her actions than she is.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

11. “My body is exhausted, but my mind is working overtime, remembering, and plotting and second-guessing.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

12. “But the truth is, there is no way to make cleaning sound sexy – unless you are cleaning a sports car, in a bikini.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

13. “Mummy, it talked! The doll talked!” “She is not a doll, Korede. She is a baby, your baby sister. You’re a big sister now, Korede. And big sisters look after little sisters.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

14. “Yoruba people have a custom of naming twins Taiwo and Kehinde. Taiwo is the older twin, the one who comes out first. Kehinde, therefore, is the second-born twin. But Kehinde is also the older twin, because he says to Taiwo, “Go out first and test the world for me.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

15. “You know, men are very fickle. Give them what they want and they will do anything for you. Keep your hair long and glossy or invest in good weaves; cook for him and send the food to his home and his office. Stroke his ego in front of his friends and treat them well for his sake. Kneel down for his parents and call them on important days. Do these things and he will put a ring on your finger, fast fast.” My mother nods sagely.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

16. “Is there anything more beautiful than a man with a voice like an ocean?”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

17. “The more he talks, the more I realize that I am a maga – a fool who has been taken advantage of.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

18. “Keep your hair long and glossy or invest in good weaves; cook for him and send the food to his home and his office. Stroke his ego in front of his friends and treat them well for his sake. Kneel down for his parents and call them on important.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

19. “Ayoola lives in a world where things must always go her way. It’s a law as certain as the law of gravity.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

20. “Stroke his ego in front of his friends and treat them well for his sake. Kneel down for his parents and call them on important days. Do these things and he will put a ring on your finger, fast fast.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

21. “Why should her hands be clean, while mine become more and more stained?”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

22. “I wonder what the chances are that the death of a person in the company of a serial killer would come about by chance.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

23. “My words are more his than mine. Educated women anger men of his ilk, and so I try to adopt broken English, but I suspect my attempt betrays my upbringing even more.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

24. “We are nothing if not thorough in our deception of others.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

25. “Braithwaite hopes she can write something one day that “does justice” to her beliefs, but she is clear that a novelist’s first responsibility is to fiction itself. “I like to have fun,” she says. “The books where I can tell I’m being taught.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

26. “It takes a whole lot longer to dispose of a body than to dispose of a soul, especially if you don’t want to leave any evidence of foul play.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

27. “I feel now much the way I felt then. Uncertain, afraid and very sure that something bad is going to happen to me.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

28. “Is it in the blood? But his blood is my blood and my blood is hers.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

29. “I dare you to find a flaw in her beauty; or to bring forth a woman who can stand beside her without wilting.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

30. “She does not cry for me,” he says, his voice hardening. “She cries for her lost youth, her missed opportunities and her limited options. She does not cry for me, she cries for herself.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

31. “Ayoola, on the other hand – well, it’ll be interesting to see whether she can do anything more strenuous than putting bread in the toaster.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

32. “It takes a whole lot longer to dispose of a body than to dispose of a soul.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

33. “The heart may be broken, but the flesh needs to eat.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

34. “As if Ayoola lives by anyone’s rules but her own.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

35. “I know better than to take life directions from someone without a moral compass.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

36. “Ayoola summons me with these words – Korede, I killed him.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

37. “There will never be another opportunity to confess my sins or another chance to absolve myself of the crimes of the past... or the future.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

38. “The knife is important to me, Korede. It is all I have left of him.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

39. “I bet you didn’t know that bleach masks the smell of blood.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

40. “I have found that the best way to take your mind off something is to binge-watch TV shows.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

41. “We take him to where we took the last one – over the bridge and into the water. At least he won’t be lonely.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

42. “Granted, she was fourteen, but fourteen then was younger than fourteen now.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

43. “It was a shame to think that death would whittle away at his broad shoulders and concave abs, until he was nothing more than bone.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

44. “Ayoola and I don’t really have friends in the traditional sense of the word. I think you have to accept someone into your confidence, and vice versa, to be able to call them a friend.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

45. “My stomach grumbles; the heart may be broken but the flesh needs to eat.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

46. “She has minions, and I have Muhtar.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

47. “Besides, no one is innocent in this world. Why, go up to your maternity ward! All those smiling parents and their newborns? Murderers and victims. Every one of them. ‘The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

48. “But then, is that so hard to believe? Who is to say that an object does not come with its own agenda? Or that the collective agenda of its previous owners does not direct its purpose still?”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

49. “These days, you look at me like I’m a monster.” Her voice is so low, I can barely hear her.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite

50. “Maybe she is reaching out because she has sent another man to his grave prematurely. Or maybe she wants to know if I can buy eggs on the way home. Either way, I’m not picking up.”

— Oyinkan Braithwaite