One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

There is a certain increase in the importance I assign to women in getting us out of the mess that we are in, which is a reflection of the role of women in my traditional culture - that they do not interfere in politics until men really make such a mess that the society is unable to go backward or forward. Then women will move in.

Just think of the work you've set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.

We don't want to be simply wandering about without some kind of reason, we want our presence here to have a purpose, and that we are not going to end here, we are going to proceed somewhere else, and also that we didn't begin here, that we began somewhere else and all that living, all that elaborate account of our presence seems to be quite basic to our nature and so this is what literacy taps into.

I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.

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.

In Nigeria, there is energy, whether it is Lagos, which is sheer anarchy, but it is not lethargic. It is strong, even aggressive and if that energy could be directed to work it will produce really enormous results.