I have fought and kicked and fasted and prayed and cursed and cried myself to the point of existing.

It has been proved that the land can exist without the country - and be better for it; it has not been proved ... that the country can exist without the land.

People who work hard often work too hard. ... May we learn to honor the hammock, the siesta, the nap and the pause in all its forms.

You a low down dog is what’s wrong. It’s time to leave you and enter into the creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need.

God is different to us now, after all these years in Africa. More spirit than ever before, and more internal. Most people think he has to look like something or someone- a roofleaf or Christ- but we don't. And not being tied to what God looks like, frees us.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am 'known for' is what I am.

I started out as a poet. I've always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels.