There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.

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.

Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.

Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!

Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.

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

When I'm writing, I really want to satisfy myself. I've got a story that I am working on and struggling with, and I want to tell it the most effective way I can. That's really what I struggle with. And the thought of who may be reading it may be there somewhere in the back of my mind - I'll never say it's not there because I don't know - but it's not really what I'm thinking about.