I have learned to interface - what I think would be the contemporary term - with various different lexicons, and people speak very different languages. I've learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians, sure.

There is a root arrogance in any writer; a hugely arrogant assumption that anyone is going to listen to them.

Facts, like people, want to be free - and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner.

You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what's happening in Africa, and if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

Technology is huge; I wanted to learn about it. People might say that's odd, but I think it's odd if artists aren't interested in the world around them. I'm always chasing that.

I'm never nervous when I go to meet heads of state. I feel they should be nervous, because they are the ones who'll be held accountable for the lives their decisions will impact the most.

Actually oddly enough, I think my work, the activism, will be forgotten. And I hope it will. Because I hope those problems will have gone away.