When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.

The writer cannot expect to be excused from the task of reeducation and regeneration that must be done. In fact, he should march right in front.

I'm a practised writer now. But when I began, I had no idea what this was going to be. I just knew that there was something inside me that wanted me to tell who I was, and that would have come out even if I didn't want it.

I have found that I work best when I am at home in Nigeria. But one learns to work in other places.

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

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.

It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence.The story is our escort;without it,we are blind.Does the blind man own his escort?No,neither do we the story;rather,it is the story that owns us.