The Thing Around Your Neck Collection – Basic Quotes to Revise

Identity Cell one

‘He did it … because the sons of other professors were doing it’

Identity Cell one

“why did you waste your fair skin on a boy and leave the girl so dark”

Identity Cell one

“I shouted at the policeman”

Identity Imitation

‘You will forgive him, madam. Men are like that’

Identity Imitation

I am spying on my husband

Identity A Private Experience

“the handbag was a Burberry”

Identity A Private Experience

‘Chika can tell … she is Muslim, because of the scarf’

Identity A Private Experience

‘(Chika) experienced the gentleness of a woman who is Hausa and Muslim’

Identity Ghosts

‘I would not need to worry about our grandson who does not speak Igbo’

Conflict Cell one

I wanted to slap her

Conflict Cell one

‘she made vague sounds about how he was just experimenting and it didn’t mean a thing’

Conflict Cell one

It was the season of cults’

Conflict A Private Expiriance

a (Christian) man drove over a copy of the Holy Koran

Conflict A Private Experience

‘(Muslim) men … cut his head off’

Conflict Ghosts

‘the education minister has stolen the pension money’

Conflict Ghosts

‘the boom-boom-boom of shelling as the federal soldiers advanced’

Conflict Ghosts

‘the justness of the Biafran cause’

Conflict Ghosts

The war took Zik’ - Ghosts

Agency Cell One

‘you have to give them some money. If you don’t, you’re in trouble’

Agency Cell One

‘I picked up a stone … and hurled it at the windshield of the Volvo… It surprised me, this little victory’

Agency Imitation

wishing they had a say

Agency Imitation

‘Nkem … said nothing’

Agency Imitation

‘she would have been happy simply to be told’

Agency Imitation

We are moving back’

Agency Ghosts

‘it was he who mounted the podium at the Staff Club’

Agency Ghosts

‘It is not good or bad … it is simply mine. And that is what matters’