Africans need to be kicked, that's the only thing they understand.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

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 had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.

I will say I am the sum of my books.

I have trusted to my intuition to find the subjects, and I have written intuitively. I have an idea when I start, I have a shape; but I will fully understand what I have written only after some years.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.