A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness

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.

In the vocabulary of certain radical theorists contradictions are given the status of some deadly disease to which their opponents alone can succumb. But contradictions are the very stuff of life. If there had been a little dash of contradiction among the Gadarene swine some of them might have been saved from drowning.

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

I have found that I work best when I am at home in Nigeria. But one learns to work in other places.

A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.

Children are very fair minded, they really are.