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

People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It’s exciting to have to deal with God as a rival.

This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.

Culture does not make people. People make culture.

Stories matter. Many stories matter.

In primary school in south-eastern Nigeria, I was taught that Hosni Mubarak was the president of Egypt. I learned the same thing in secondary school. In university, Mubarak was still president of Egypt. I came to assume, subconsciously, that he - and others like Paul Biya in Cameroon and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya - would never leave.

Papa sat down at the table and poured his tea from the china tea set with pink flowers on the edges. I waited for him to ask Jaja and me to take a sip, as he always did. A love sip, he called it, because you shared the little things you loved with the people you love.