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

Every generation must find its mission and fulfill it, as Fanon said – or betray it. So it is not something that you can write up on the wall, saying this is what has to be done. Every generation has to discover what it needs to do.

Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.

We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the egret perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break.

Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.

A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.

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.

People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that’s the time to do something about it, not when it’s around your neck.

Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.

When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.

When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.

One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems – where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require?

Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities.

There is no story that is not true.

A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.