Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter.

If one will always have to feel white first, and African second, it would be better not to stay on in Africa

The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable.

All worthwhile writing... comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.

The process of writing fiction is totally unconscious. It comes from what you are learning, as you live, from within. For me, all writing is a process of discovery. We are looking for the meaning of life. No matter where you are, there are conflicts and dramas everywhere. It is the process of what it means to be a human being; how you react and are reacted upon, these inward and outer pressures. If you are writing with a direct cause in mind, you are writing propaganda. It's fatal for a fiction writer.

It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.

I cannot live with someone who can't live without me.