When a white man in Africa by accident looks into the eyes of a native and sees the human being (which it is the chief preoccupation to avoid), his sense of guilt, which he denies, fumes up in resentment and he brings down the whip.

I'm very unhappy when I'm not writing.

Every child has the capacity to be everything.

You have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

When old settlers say 'One has to understand the country,' what they mean is, 'You have to get used to our ideas about the native.' They are saying in effect, 'Learn our ideas, or otherwise get out; we don't want you.'

Is there any delight as great as the child's discovering ability?

if you understand something, you don't forgive it, you are the thing itself: forgiveness is for what you don't understand.