My mother died happily of a stroke in her seventies.

The smell of manure, of sun on foliage, of evaporating water, rose to my head; two steps farther, and I could look down into the vegetable garden enclosed within its tall pale of reeds - rich chocolate earth studded emerald green, frothed with the white of cauliflowers, jeweled with the purple globes of eggplant and the scarlet wealth of tomatoes.

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

I didn't go to school much, so I taught myself what I knew from reading.

Every child has the capacity to be everything.

Dreams have always been my friend, full of information, full of warnings.

I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.