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

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.

It has always been quite apparent to me that no important story can fail to tell us something of value to us.

Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.

A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.

Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.

The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.

Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.

The language of young men is pull down and destroy; but an old man speaks of conciliation.

My weapon is literature.

If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.

No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.

We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: ‘He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.’

If one finger brings oil it soils the others.

A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?

Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.