There was something wrong with her. She did not know what it was but there was something wrong with her. A hunger, a restlessness. An incomplete knowledge of herself. The sense of something farther away, beyond her reach.
Academics were not intellectuals; they were not curious, they built their stolid tents of specialized knowledge and stayed securely in them.
They never said “I don’t know.” They said, instead, “I’m not sure,” which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge.
Stories matter.
We never actively remember death,′ Odenigbo said. The reason we live as we do is because we do not remember that we will die. We will all die.
But she was uncomfortable with what the professors called ‘participation,’ and did not see why it should be part of the final grade; it merely made students talk and talk, class time wasted on obvious words, hollow words, sometimes meaningless words.