# Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's most quoted lines (with their source)

The danger of a single story, girls taught to shrink themselves and "Culture does not make people. People make culture": Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's most quoted lines, from her TED talks, Americanah and her interviews, each with its source.

- 298 votes · 12 items
- Feb 25, 2022 · Hannah Mitchell
- https://even.best/en/l/5143/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-s-most-quoted-lines-with-their-source

## Top 12

1. **The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.** (36 · ▲37 ▼1) — TED talk "The Danger of a Single Story" (2009).
2. **Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.** (27 · ▲31 ▼4) — TED talk "The Danger of a Single Story" (2009).
3. **I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.** (24 · ▲25 ▼1) — Americanah (2013).
4. **We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.** (22 · ▲25 ▼3) — TEDxEuston talk "We Should All Be Feminists" (2012).
5. **The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognising how we are.** (18 · ▲22 ▼4) — TEDxEuston talk "We Should All Be Feminists" (2012).
6. **I was a happy African feminist who does not hate men and who likes lip gloss and who wears high heels for herself but not for men.** (17 · ▲21 ▼4) — TEDxEuston talk "We Should All Be Feminists" (2012).
7. **Because we write fiction we mine our souls. Of course you put yourself into your fiction, your fiction is you.** (15 · ▲17 ▼2) — Interview, The Guardian (28 April 2018).
8. **Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing.** (11 · ▲15 ▼4) — Americanah (2013).
9. **Culture does not make people. People make culture.** (11 · ▲14 ▼3) — TEDxEuston talk "We Should All Be Feminists" (2012).
10. **Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier.** (9 · ▲18 ▼9) — Americanah (2013).
11. **He made her like herself.** (9 · ▲13 ▼4) — Americanah (2013).
12. **I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else.** (7 · ▲14 ▼7) — We Should All Be Feminists (2014).

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.