Death would be a complete knowingness, but what frightened him was this: not knowing beforehand what it was he would know.

Lasting love has to be built on mutual regard and respect. It is about seeing the other person. I am very interested in relationships and, when I watch couples, sometimes I can sense a blindness has set in. They have stopped seeing each other. It is not easy to see another person.

You Americans, always peering under people's beds to look for communism.

We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.

Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.

How [stories] are told, who tells them, when they’re told, how many stories are told — are really dependent on power.

Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in "real" African culture, before it was tainted by the west, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed.