The world is always in movement.

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

This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.

People come and go all the time; the world has always been in movement.

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.

If a writer doesn't generate hostility, he is dead.

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.