we have not yet developed a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination.

One certainty we all accept is the condition of being uncertain and insecure.

When I became political and Communist, it was because they were the only people I had ever met who fought the color bar in their lives.

Advice to young writers? Always the same advice: learn to trust our own judgment.

When the print revolution occurred 400 years ago, human beings lost a certain mental capacity, including a sense of memory. In Africa today, you meet people who still carry everything in their heads, the way we used to. We rely on telephone books, address books. We have to look up everything.

The art of living in a small town is one of the most difficult to acquire.

As you get older, you don't get wiser. You get irritable.