When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

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.

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

It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.

Africa is people" may seem too simple and too obvious to some of us. But I have found in the course of my travels through the world that the most simple things can still givwe us a lot of trouble, even the brightest among us: this is particularly so in matters concerning Africa.

What a man does not know is greater than he.