“At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.”

Humans, not places, make memories.

Once in a while I catch myself wondering whether I would have found the courage to write if I had not started to write when I was too young to know what was good for me.

Love is fine for singing about and love songs are good to listen to, sometimes even to dance to. But when we need food for our stomachs and clothes for our backs, love is nothing. Ah my lady, the last man any woman should think of marrying is the man she loves.

Once an interesting idea or theme occurs to me then I would want to write a poem about it. The rest, frankly, is not difficult.

The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics.

After all, if we look closer into ourselves, shall we not admit that the warmth from other people comes so sweet to us when it comes, because, we always carry with us the knowledge of the cold loneliness of death?

the best way to sharpen a knife is not to whet one side of it only. And neither can you solve a riddle by considering only one end of it.

People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics.

Toyin Falola has given us what is truly rare in modern African writing: a seriously funny, racy, irreverent package of memories, and full of the most wonderful pieces of poetry and ordinary information.

It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.

For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism.

I always wanted to write poetry, even when I was very young.

They had always told me that I wrote like a man.

Life is inspirational; sometimes it comes from the most unlikely places.

Time by itself means nothing, no matter how fast it moves, unless we give it something to carry for us; something we value. Because it is such a precious vehicle, is time.

Its a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days.

Do I feel like I’m 65? No. I feel like I’m 15. That’s my problem.

Television is 15 hour days. Movies are 18 hour days. And it’s 18 hours of doing not a thing.

Let alone 15 minutes – to decide what you think about it.

You do live longer with bran, but you spend the last fifteen years on the toilet.

In your country club, your church, and business, about fifteen percent of the people are screwballs, lightweights, and boobs, and you would not want those people unrepresented in Congress.

I didn’t want the book [of memoirs] out, naturally – Larry [Grobel] knew that for 20 years, 15 at least,

When I made my Broadway debut, I was still cleaning houses, something I’d done since I went out on my own at 15.