Just think of the work you've set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.

What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing.

People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them. This is what people have come to expect. Its not viewed as a serious continent. Its a place of strange, bizarre and illogical things, where people dont do what common sense demands.

That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.

Those who are talking sharia in Nigeria are really just politicians exploiting what they think is available. But if it should turn out that there are in fact whole sections of the country which believe that it is legitimate to chop off peoples hands because they stole a hen - if that should really turn out to be the genuine belief of responsible, educated people in the North than I would say there is no chance. But I do not believe that is the case. The sharia was always there but it was never force onto non-Muslims and it was not ever applied in the area of criminal law.

Women and music should not be dated.

People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.