“You have to give it your all to be successful.”

When we [Bayern] were in China people knew us but Bayern were not so big in America.

My hairstyle role model is Manuel Neuer. His hair is always perfect.

United are more popular around the world. There is a difference and I can see that. Bayern Munich is a big club but United are bigger.

Being here feels like I’m out of prison. This is the right place, the right time, the right team.

The thing is, I don’t do these things for recognition, being a good teammate, being a positive member of the community. I do them because those things make me whole and complete.

The only difference between men and women is that women are able to create new little human beings in their bodies while simultaneously writing books, driving tractors, working in offices, planting crops – in general, doing everything men do.

I think you just have to keep knocking down doors, you have to keep being aggressive, and even if somebody says ‘No’, then you have to knock on the next door.

I couldn’t be sufficiently interested in human beings to be a writer if I had contempt for human beings.

One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.

Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power.

For me, being in prison writing in an African language was a way of saying: “Even if you put me in prison, I will keep on writing in the language which made you put me in prison.”