“If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.”

The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.

Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit — in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.

The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.

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.

If only I had the Theorems! Then I should find the proofs easily enough.

Commuting in a wheelchair is not easy. I live in a very old part of Rome. These cobbles everywhere… terrible! In London, it is the same. Every pavement is uneven.

I think my life will always be worth living, though I don’t imagine it being very easy.

I don’t know how to not become every person I walk by.

It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent.

I’m easy to work with, not a pushover, but I respond to criticism and find it inspiring.

Castles in the air – they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build too.

The job of the evangelist is never easy.