If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you; if you're not going to be a writer nothing I can say will help you. What you really need at the beginning is somebody to let you know that the effort is real.

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

Because I was raised in a Christian culture I never considered myself to be a totally free human being.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.

All of Africa will be free before we can get a lousy cup of coffee.

You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.

A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.