No man however great is greater than his people

If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.

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

When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate

I do not actually see how art, literature can be anything other that being in that domain of trying to tell us, trying to get us to see what is important in our lives.

There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

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.