The Novelist As Teacher”: “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.

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.

It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.

Those whose kernels were cracked by benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble.

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

Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.

I think not just Nigeria but I think the whole of Africa has to turn back to the rural areas and that's where the majority of the citizens are and that's where the engine of of development has to be found.