Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.

Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don't really know about its value to the student. I don't mean it's useless. But I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write.

If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings.

I think Africa is slowly learning - and painfully - that importance of insisting on responsible leadership. It will come eventually, and we may be impatient and rightly so, because it is not coming fast enough. But that is the way to go.

When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.

If the economy of a country collapses completely and the hospitals are no longer able to function as hospitals, it will be very difficult to tell every doctor to stay home to work without drugs, to work without equipment. You might tell some to stay but there a lot of young people who are at the beginning of their careers who would be very difficult to persuade.

It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors.