“Those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mould it and those committed to breaking it up; those who aim to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow […] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes”

There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.

They want to be the ones telling people: “This is what we have done in history” but when people begin to say, “No this is what we have done in history” it’s a different thing.

It was a revelation for me, in a practical sense, that you could write in an African language and still reach an audience beyond that language through the art of translation.

People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.

What’s good about writing is that when you write novels or fiction, people can see that the problems in one region are similar to problems in another region.

In terms of language, English is very dominant vis-Ã-vis African language. That in itself is a power relationship – between languages and communities – because the English language is a determinant of the ladder to achievement.

I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.

How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?

We think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.

And even in terms of justice, law codes, the legal system. A person who does not know English in Africa is excluded from that system because he can only operate through acts of translation.

Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!

I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.

We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.

Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind?

Our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it.

The Bible in translation is being read to thousands and thousands in Africa. It is an integral part of their functioning and the way they look at the world.

If anybody reads an Indian newspaper, all these things are obvious, and so I am not breaking news. All I am doing is representing my community as it actually is.

The key to breaking the Taliban taboo against women and the cultural brainwashing that the Taliban imposed upon many Afghans is to get women back into the workforce.

Every real poem is the breaking of an existing silence, and the first question we might ask any poem is, What kind of voice is breaking silence, and what kind of silence is being broken?

Practicing till strengthand accuracy became one with the daringto leap into transcendence, take the chance of breaking down in the wild arpeggioor faulting the full sentence of the fugue.

Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.

Sin is not just breaking God’s laws; it is breaking His heart.

He threw a lot of strikes, worked it inside and out, threw breaking balls for strikes behind in the count.

And that’s before anyone starts breaking the rules.