When I say war, I'm not talking about mental war; I'm talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.

I don’t know any other way to live but to wake up everyday armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.

Writers - human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.

We do not ask the mountain's aid to crack a walnut.

We wasted a lot of creative energy in that immediate post colonial era, when there was a struggle between, you know, the Cold War between the capitalism and communism. Many writers just wasted their energy and their talent because they want to be ideologically correct and of course all they produced was propaganda.

I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.

I think the epicentre of terrorism whether you call it cesspit or whatever you want to call it, shift, if you asked me a while ago, I would have said Somalia, Somalia has quietened a bit - and I think the epicentre right now is in Northern Nigeria.