I learned to fire guns at the age of nine or so, but luckily was not out killing people. We zigzagged the streets to escape those trying to kill us. I guess it would have been a matter of time till I turned around with a gun myself, to go after those coming for us. But I was fortunate. The grenade incident was about an explosion which destroyed a section of my school, from a grenade that me and my cousin detonated by accident. We both lived to tell about it.

To reach your goal authentically is probably, in the end, going to mean much more to you than having reached it in a false way.

It was not my dream to be an artist. How could it have been? I thought, artist, much like a leader, was something you either were or weren't. Never something you set out to be.

And any man who knows a thing, knows he knows not a damn, damn thing at all.

Somalis really are very musically sophisticated, and they're about their own thing.

I'm writing from a place of - a center of authenticity, somewhere that only I know how to write from.

Until the lion learns to speak, the tales of hunting will be weak.