Whenever I try to do anything on a typewriter, it's like having this machine between me and the words; what comes out is not quite what would come out if I were scribbling.

It is not quite true to say that I am not an advocate of writing in African languages. What I think is, one has to think about what is practicable.

When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.

I do not think that there is any time in our history when things were perfect. I do not expect such times in the near future either. But I think every generation has to examine what needs to be done, what belongs to its peace and proceed. And so what needs to be done will change with time depending on the conditions, whatever the conditions happen to be. And they will not be the same for generation after generation.

If someone said, I want to translate your novel into Igbo, I would say, Go ahead. But when I write in the Igbo language, I write my own dialect. I write some poetry in that dialect.

A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.