Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I don't have the sort of temperament that submits to Christianity or Islam. "

Related Quotes:

" But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all. "

" Education is lacking in most of those who pontificate. "

" You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.' "

" There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind. "

" Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space. "

" You always assume for some strange reason that you need three meals a day. "

" The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist. "

" One has to confront history honestly. "

" My father was a schoolteacher, and so I had the advantage of both western educational instruction in the school, as well as what you might call the process of imbibing the traditional processes of education instruction around me. "

" The scales of reckoning with mortality are never evenly weighted, alas, and thus it is on the shoulders of the living that the burden of justice must continue to rest. "

" Each time I think I've created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space. "

" No human is completely fearless. "

" The problem with literature, with writing, is that it works sometimes in terms of correction of social ills. Other times, it just does not suffice. "

" Just like birds, hunters know no borders. "

" The blatant aggressiveness of theocracies I find distressing, because I grew up when Christians, Muslim and animists lived peacefully together. "

" I've done a lot of guerrilla theater in my time. "

" I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood. "

" There's no way to escape the culture that has evolved, from which we ourselves have evolved. Naturally, we stress it, break it up, reassemble it to suit our own needs. But it is there - a source of vital strength. "

" Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth. "

" There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda. Propaganda can be written by anybody, including dictators. "

" I like to say, 'I spend one-third of my time in Nigeria, one-third in Europe or America, and one-third on a plane.' "

" In the world of literature, I see prizes as more of a duty to the craft itself, rather than as something for the individual. "

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

" Probably to me the greatest singer, female voice, is Billie Holiday. And one of the most moving for me, I don't know why - maybe it's nostalgia, maybe because my life is one of constant partying, whatever. "

" I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident. "

" An idyllic period of my existence was when I had a den attached to my home... a writing den, and no one had access to that unless they had their own special visa, applied for weeks in advance. "

" For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity. "

" Very conscious of the fact that an effort was being made to destroy my mind, because I was deprived of books, deprived of any means of writing, deprived of human companionship. You never know how much you need it until you're deprived of it. "

" Rwanda, which is one of the younger independent states in Africa, must be regarded as a model of how great human trauma can be transformed to commence true reconstruction of people. Human trauma can lead to stunted growth and mass withdrawal. "

" See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome. "