Perhaps the best way to write is to do so as if one were already dead, afraid of no one's reactions, answerable to no one's views.

Censorship may have to do with literature; but literature has nothing whatever to do with censorship.

In a certain sense a writer is 'selected' by his subject - his subject being the consciousness of his own era.

If I dreamt this, while walking, walking in the London streets, the subconscious of each and every other life, past and present, brushing me in passing, what makes it real? Writing it down.

The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.

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. Ideology demands it. Society exacts it.