A goat does not eat into a hen's stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.

Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

No man however great is greater than his people

I don't want to be the one to tell somebody, You will not make it, even though I know that the majority of those who come to me with their manuscripts are not really good enough.

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.

The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.

I couldn't tell you why but now I know a story is in fact where you discover who you are, where a culture discovers what it is and I just think that this is a terribly important place to get into and that I would enjoy it.