Helen Oyeyemi
Helen Oyeyemi
Helen Olajumoke Oyeyemiis a British novelist...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 December 1984
reading thinking
I think, basically, what I'm good for is reading - a lot.
exercise often-is names
Magic is an exercise of a pattern of thought (sometimes represented by a gesture, ritual, or the calling of a true name) that results in manifestation/s. But these patterns of thought can have so much to do with whimsy that magic often is jokes.
miracle noses enough
There were days when he touched the tip of her nose and it was enough, a miracle of plenty.
dark way sometimes
I see all mythology as one tradition, a way of disseminating knowledge that must come to us in code so that we can live sanely with it, since some forms of knowledge are too dark, or too complex, to be plainly spoken. And so we have these weird (and also sometimes entertaining and surprising and heartening) tales that belong to all of us.
girl eye white
In Narnia a girl might ring a bell in a deserted temple and feel the chime in her eyes, pure as the freeze that forces tears. Then when the sound dies out, the White Witch wakes. It was like, I want to touch you, and I can touch you, now what next, a dagger?
morning coffee firsts
The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it’s ready and then your ghost pours the resurrection potion out of the moka pot.
air space light
Because things grow. Wherever there is air and light and open space, things grow.
girl running secret
Please tell me a story about a girl who gets away." I would, even if I had to adapt one, even if I had to make one up just for her. "Gets away from what, though?" "From her fairy godmother. From the happy ending that isn't really happy at all. Please have her get out and run off of the page altogether, to somewhere secret where words like 'happy' and 'good' will never find her." "You don't want her to be happy and good?" "I'm not sure what's really meant by happy and good. I would like her to be free. Now. Please begin.
mind wish awful
I wish there was someone I could have written to after that, someone I could have written to explain how awful it was to have someone touch you, then look at you properly and change his mind.
amazing book builds connection deserve few goosebumps haunting hill love named narrative pressure remember shirley
I do love Shirley Jackson, but I don't deserve to be named in connection with her. I remember reading 'The Haunting of Hill House' and having goosebumps for hours. The way she builds narrative pressure in that book is just amazing. I think you could reread it a few times and actually go out of your mind.
perfect saws alive
I collected pictures and I drew pictures and I looked at the pictures by myself. And because no one else ever saw them, the pictures were perfect and true. They were alive.
girl disappointment hysteria
Like every girl, I only need to look up and a little to the right of me to see the hysteria that belongs to me, the one that hangs om a hook like an empty jacket and flutters with disappointment that I cannot wear her all the time. I call her my hysteric, and this personal hysteric of mine is designer made (though I'm not sure who made her), flattering and comfortable, attractive even, if you're around people who like that sort of thing. She is not anyone, my hysteric; she is blank, electricity dancing around a filament, singing to kill.
names calling different
I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don't have names.