Greatness depends on where you are coming from.

I recently spoke at a university where a student told me it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had recently read a novel called American Psycho,and that it was a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.

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

She could not complain about not having shoes when the person she was talking to had no legs.

If you start thinking about being likable you are not going to tell your story honestly.

Richard exhaled. It was like somebody sprinkling pepper on his wound: Thousands of Biafrans were dead, and this man wanted to know if there was anything new about one dead white man. Richard would write about this, the rule of Western journalism: One hundred dead black people equal to one dead white person.

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