If you don't like someone's story, write your own. If you don't like what somebody says, say what it is you don't like.

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.

What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.

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

We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.'

Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again. We have to begin to learn to rule ourselves again.