I am not an early-morning person; I don't like to get out of bed, and so I don't begin writing at five A.M., though some people, I hear, do. I write once my day has started. And I can work late into the night, also.

Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.

We have heard stories about white men who make the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true.

There is that great proverb - that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It's not one man's job. It's not one person's job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail - the bravery, even, of the lions.

I think not just Nigeria but I think the whole of Africa has to turn back to the rural areas and that's where the majority of the citizens are and that's where the engine of of development has to be found.

Serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict.

The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations.