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

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

Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.

If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’ If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’ But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.

Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.

Poetry and slave trading cannot be bedfellows. That's where I stand.

There is a certain increase in the importance I assign to women in getting us out of the mess that we are in, which is a reflection of the role of women in my traditional culture - that they do not interfere in politics until men really make such a mess that the society is unable to go backward or forward. Then women will move in.