"He picks up a comb from the table, blows dust and loose hair off it. But as he leans forward with the comb to dig into Man’s hair, Man jerks his head backwards, dodging the Barber’s contact. Barber’s hands halt in mid-air, himself startled."

"If you think you can drum for my downfall, and hope that, drum will sound, then your head is not good."

"Now my people, when trees fall on trees, first the topmost must be removed."

"If you think like a tortoise you can plot against me without my first cutting you down with my own tortoise tricks, then, fellow, madness is in your liver."

"When you get up every day, I want you to remind yourself that tomorrow will be better than today. That you are a person of value. That you are important."

"It’s so heartbreaking that we’re killing talent. We’re killing intelligence. We’re killing future leaders. We’re killing brains, inventors. We’re killing so much by not allowing these girls to be educated."

"But there are words in my head, many things I want to say. I want to tell Ms. Tia I am sorry I made her come here. I want to ask why the doctor didn’t come too. Why didn’t he come and get a beating like his wife? If it takes two people to make a baby, why only one person, the woman, is suffering when the baby is not coming? Is it because she is the one with breast and the stomach for being pregnant? Or because of what? I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?"

"When the frog in front falls in pit, others behind take caution."

"You do me great wrong, therefore to think that, like a rock in the middle of a lake, forever cooled by flowing waters, I do not know, and cannot know the sun's hotness that burns and dries up the open land."

"Your highness, if you think to have heavy suspicion is wisdom, then your head is not well."

"Me fight am sojar for Lugard. 1901, we take am Kontagora. West Africa Frontier Force. Me dey 1902 we take am Bauchi, go Borno. Lugard telli me...(patting himself on the back) 'Good man, good man!' 1903 - we take am Kano, take am Sokoto. Lugard make am me Corpul-one rope..."

"Barber’s arm stops in mid-air. It trembles visibly. Man throws his arms up triumphantly. Starts scooping money into his pocket."

"When the rain falls on the leopard, does it wash off its spots? Has the richness of kingly life washed off the love of our King for his people?"

"It is not changing into the lion that is hard, it is getting the tail of a lion"

"My people. Children of our fathers. Sickness is like rain. Does the rain fall on one roof alone? No. Does it fall on one body and not on another? No. Whoever the rain sees, on him it rains. Does it not? It is the same with sickness."

"What hurts one man may benefit another” and “a diseased village is a good village to a medicine man”"

"It was a fact that if Amadioha has insisted on taking a man’s life, no medicine man could do anything about it...”"

"One thing is clear: I shall marry Ihuoma. She is a human being, and if marrying a woman like her is a fatal mistake, I am prepared to make it. If I am her husband for a day before my death my soul will go singing happily to the spirit world. There also I shall be prepared to dare the wrath of four hundred Sea Kings for her sake."

"“Fifteen years ago, I was selling cheap materials from my boot, going from place to place, looking for customers. I wasn’t born into wealth. I have worked hard for my success. I fought for it. It wasn’t easy, especially because my husband, Chief, he didn’t have a job. If you want to be like me in business, Adunni, you will need to work very hard. Rise about whatever life throws at you. And never, ever give up on your dreams. Do you understand?”"

"He reconciles himself to these forces and treats them with reverence and dignity. He believes that his every action is guided and directed by spirits”"

"No one wanted to betray his admiration. There was silence for a time."

"There are few women like Ihuoma in the world... It is death to marry them and they leave behind a harrowing string of dead husbands. They are usually beautiful, very beautiful but dogged by their invisible husbands of the spirit world. With some spirits marriage is possible if an expert on sorcery is consulted. With the sea-king it is impossible. He is too powerful to be fettered and when he is on the offensive he is absolutely relentless. He unleashes all the powers at his command and they are fatal”"

"When the chameleon brings forth a child, is not that child expected to dance? As we have made you King, act as King."

"The horns cannot be too heavy for the head of the cow that must bear them."

"I tear to pieces the paper, and throw it to the floor. Then I swim deep inside the river of my soul, find the key from where it is sitting, full of rust, at the bottom of the river, and open the lock. I kneel down beside my bed, close my eyes, turn myself into a cup, and pour the memory out of me."

"When she come out, she draw deep breath and her chest, wide like blackboard, is climbing up and down, up and down. It is as if this woman is using her nostrils to be collecting all the heating from the outside and making us to be catching cold. I am standing beside Mr. Kola, and his body is shaking like my own. Even the trees in the compound, the yellow, pink, blue flowers in the long flowerpot, all of them too are shaking."

"Until the rotten tooth is pulled out, the mouth must chew with caution."

"I am leaving Ikati. This is what I been wanting all my life, to leave this place and see what the world outside is looking like, but not like this. Not with a bad name following me. Not like a person that the whole village is looking for because they think she have kill a woman. Not with one half of my heart with Kayus and the other half with Khadija. I hang my head down, feeling a thick, heavy cloth as it is covering me. The thick cloth of shame, of sorrow, of heart pain."

"Have I been sleeping? If so, I am sick in the head: for only a madman would go to sleep with his roof on fire."

"Me an Ijekun man, a stranger in your tribe [stares at CHIEFS] when crocodiles eat their own egg, what will they not do to the flesh of a frog."

"The hyena flirts with the hen, the hen is happy, not knowing that her death has come."

"Two rams cannot drink in the same bucket at the same time. They will lock horns."

"I didn’t tell Ms. Tia that I ever marry Morufu or about all the things he did to me in the room after he drink Fire-Cracker. I didn’t tell her about what happen to Khadija. I didn’t tell her because I have to keep it inside one box in my mind, lock the box, and throw the key inside river of my soul. Maybe one day, I will swim inside the river, find the key."

"If you rise too early the dew of life will soak you."

"A man who cannot control his wife is like a chief who cannot control his subjects."

"When a man's beard is on fire, he does not worry about whose axe is sharp."

"Some people have started gathering in groups with people of their own kind. That too must stop"

"He says it's not that we don't want to be alive."

"Apprentice barber is sitting on the stool. Nothing to do, he is leafing through the pages of some tattered newspapers…all of which report on Talks – all spices of Talks…On the bench at the other side of the shop the Master Barber himself lies full length, face heavenwards asleep…"

"“But you were blind to your wife’s depression and silent resentment. She hid it from you because she loved you. And you were blind to it because society offers you that blindfold, that thick cloth of entitlement, patriarchy, at birth.”"

"Ihuoma is the sea-king’s main interest and her male admires are victims of circumstance and of their own misdeeds”"

"Kolanut last long in the mouths of them who value it."

"It is sickness that man can cure, not death"

"If it takes two people to make a baby, why only one person, the woman, is suffering when the baby is not coming? Is it because she is the one with breast and the stomach for being pregnant? Or because of what? I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than men?"

"I feel a free that I didn't feel in long time. And when I smile, it climb from inside my stomach and spread itself on my teeth."