I am sure everyone has had the experience of reading a book and finding it vibrating with aliveness, with colour and immediacy. And then, perhaps some weeks later, reading it again and finding it flat and empty. Well, the book hasn't changed: you have.

... if you have nothing, you are free to choose among dreams and fantasies.

I think kids ought to travel. I think it's very good to carry kids around. It's good for them. Of course it's tough on the parents.

The white man has settled like a locust over Africa, and, like the locusts in early morning, cannot take flight for the heaviness of the dew on their wings. But the dew that weights the white man is the money that he makes from our labor.

Africa gives you the knowledge that man is a small creature, among other creatures, in a large landscape.

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

My mother died happily of a stroke in her seventies.