Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

To most people a savage nation is wan that doesn't wear oncomf'rtable clothes.

When I arrived in America, I had these very dark red nails which some people objected to, but then some people object to absolutely everything.

Why do people think that if you don't dress up, others will appreciate your beauty more - that style will somehow emanate from you? It's rubbish. If you dress up it helps your personality to emerge - if you choose well

-'What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?' There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter

Self-conscious? Try a wig, a corset, a veil, a beard. Or cultivate shamelessness.

We should only admit into America those who share our values and respect our people.

Every American was to become a performing self.

Cultural America is under siege. And as the Soviet experience illustrates, ideology is a weak glue to hold together people otherwise lacking racial, ethnic, and cultural sources of community.

Style is the way we communicate who we are to people before we open our mouths.

The British vice is overthinking before we speak, which is really annoying. I love the way that, in America, people are more straightforward. The American vice would be sometimes speaking too loudly. You can always hear American people on the trains!

I've come from a very masculine country to a feminine country. England was very masculine; people went from England to abroad, and they landed from above and they said "These are the gods you will worship, these are the crops you will grow, now go away and do it." Which is a manly attitude. Americans go abroad and they say, "Try not to quarrel so much", which is a feminine attitude.

Style helps distinguish you . . . It's a great potential opportunity that people tend to leave by the wayside

People believe that if you're concerned about the clothes you're wearing and the larger aspects of your appearance, that it's anti-intellectual. I say "Hogwash!" The clothes we wear send a message about how the world perceives us.

If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.

You should always look like a star. Otherwise people will lose a little of the esteem they have for you.

I believe the public schools are the greatest cultural influence in this country.

What I saw in that country, I saw in that country and I saw people respect him and his family and that's what I mean about that.

Everyone has taste, yet it is more of a taboo subject than sex or money. The reason for this is simple: claims about your attitudes to or achievements in the carnal and financial arenas can be disputed only by your lover and your financial advisers, whereas by making statements about your taste you expose body and soul to terrible scrutiny. Taste is a merciless betrayer of social and cultural attitudes. Thus, while anybody will tell you as much (and perhaps more than) you want to know about their triumphs in bed and at the bank, it is taste that gets people's nerves tingling.

I've always cared about my personal style and the way people perceive me. I know a lot of times people don't get the opportunity to talk to me, so they're just going to see what I wear, see how I'm dressed, see how I present myself.

The way I dress and carry myself, a lot of people find it intimidating. I think my whole career can be boiled down to the one word I always say in meetings: strength.

Society is an interweaving and interworking of mental selves. I imagine your mind and especially what your mind thinks about my mind and what my mind thinks about what your mind thinks about my mind. I dress my mind before you and expect that you will dress yours before mine. Whoever cannot or will not perform these feats is not properly in the game.

Sex was a great no-no for Americans, so that was obviously an attraction to the writers, and since sex is a great part of most people's lives, it's a great subject.

I don't know where this is coming from. What's wrong with my hair? I'm like 'I just made history and people are focused on my hair?' It can be bald or short, it doesn't matter about my hair. Nothing is going to change. I'm going to wear my hair like this during beam and bar finals. You might as well just stop talking about it.

Dressing well is a form of good manners.