“I think a repressive regime always fears people who are awakened – particularly ordinary people. If they are awakened, I think governments all over the world feel uncomfortable about that; they want to be in control.”

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.

You get another person who operates only in an African language and there are many persons who operate only in African languages; he or she is excluded from all the goodies that come with English.

What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.

How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go?

All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after night And never get the answers right.

Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It’s hard to keep awake with nothing to do.

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

Just because you’re awake doesn’t mean you should stop dreaming.

I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.

Sometimes living is easy and sometimes you lie awake at night and ask your tired heart please survive one more day.

The more you suffer, the more you awaken.

The madman is a dreamer awake.