Elections are a Western jerk-off.

Only Esmeralda was not weeping. Instead she wore that wooden look that whites mistake for churlishenss or indifference. Woodrew knew it was neither. It was familiarity. This how real life is constituted, it said. This is grief and hatred and people hacked to death. This is the everyday we have known since we were born and you Wazungu have not.

Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.

I'm really a library man, or second-hand book man.

My definition of a decent society is one that first of all takes care of its losers, and protects its weak.

I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat.