Stay with Me

Stay with Me is a novel written by Nigerian author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀. It was first published in 2017, by Canongate Books in the UK and subsequently by Alfred A. Knopf in the US. The story centers around Yejide and Akinleye and their struggles with infertility and societal pressure.

Quotes

 * If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But when it’s in a thousand pieces around your feed, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer love.
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 * Sometimes I think we have children because we want to leave behind someone who can explain who we were to the world when we are gone.
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 * So love is like a test, but in what sense? To what end? Who was carrying out the test? But I think I did believe that love had immense power to unearth all that was good in us, refine us and reveal to us the better versions of ourselves.
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 * Before you call the snail a weakling, tie your house to your back and carry it around for a week
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 * I understand how a word others use every day can become something whispered in the dark to soothe a wound that just won't heal. I remember thinking I would never hear it spoken without unravelling a little, wondering if I would ever get to say it in the light. So I recognise the gift in this simple pronouncement, the promise of a beginning in this one word.
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 * OK, we'll tell her you dug the grave." It's the truth - stretch, but still true. Besides, what would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves that we present as the only ones that exist?
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 * The reasons why we do the things we do will not always be the ones that others will remember. Sometimes
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 * I loved Yejide from the very first moment. No doubt about that. But there are things even love can’t do. Before I got married, I believed love could do anything. I learned soon enough that it couldn’t bear the weight of four years without children. If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But even when it’s in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer love.
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