My life is short. I can't listen to banality.

I often wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn't made that decision. I suppose I would have sunk. I suppose I would have found some kind of hole and tried to hide or pass. After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities. I would have hidden in my hole and been crippled by my sentimentality, doing what I was doing, and doing it well, but always looking for the wailing wall. And I would never have seen the world as the rich place that it is. You wouldn't have seen me here in Africa, doing what I do.

My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.

I could meet dreadful people and end up seeing the world through their eyes, seeing their frailties, their needs.

I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people's lands.

His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.