When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.

...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.

Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.

What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing.

You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree — the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.

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.

A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.