“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’ If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’ But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.

People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

I think not just Nigeria but I think the whole of Africa has to turn back to the rural areas and that’s where the majority of the citizens are and that’s where the engine of of development has to be found.

Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am – and what I need – is something I have to find out myself.

We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.

When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.

Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.

I am against people reaping where they have not sown. But we have a saying that if you want to eat a toad you should look for a fat and juicy one.

In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.

When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.

I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.

If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own. If you don’t like what somebody says, say what it is you don’t like.

As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.

Charity is the opium of the privileged.

When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.

And theories are no more than fictions which help us to make sense of experience and which are subject to disconfirmation when their explanations are no longer adequate.

I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

As a young black woman, I notice at times in the mainstream media framing of the ‘me too’ movement you see a white female face or a white male face, and that type of questioning and interrogation needs to happen.

What do we have to do to make God love us?’ I always grew up with that. I always used to go around thinking that. ‘God loved the white people better. He must’ve. That’s why he made them white.’

In these trying economic times, I believe the White House should have a minimalist touch: open floor plan, glass and steel, throw pillows, and an infinity pool.

I wanted the young African-American girls also on the bus to know that they had a right to be there, because they had paid their fare just like the white passengers.

I’d imagine my wedding as a fairy tale… huge, beautiful and white.

That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.

As long as white people put people of color, African Americans and Latinos, in the same dispensable bag, and look at our children of color as insignificant and treat women of color as not as deserving of protection as white women, we will never achieve true equality.