The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.

The writer cannot expect to be excused from the task of reeducation and regeneration that must be done. In fact, he should march right in front.

When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.

Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too – If one says no to the other, let his wing break.

I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.

A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.

Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.