I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write. That's my own taste. I prefer to stumble on it.

Children are young, but they're not naive. And they're honest. They're not going to keep wide awake if the story is boring. When they get excited you can see it in their eyes.

You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree — the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.

Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities

Every generation must find its mission and fulfill it, as Fanon said - or betray it. So it is not something that you can write up on the wall, saying this is what has to be done. Every generation has to discover what it needs to do.