"A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness"

"The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others."

"You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself."

"Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."

"A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk."

"It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning."

"It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair."

"Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!"

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

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

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

"...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly."

"People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories."

"Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings."

"Nobody can teach me who I am."

"If you don't like my story,write your own"

"When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk"

"There is no story that is not true."

"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."

"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."

"My weapon is literature"

"Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged."

"To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them."