Cyprian Ekwensi

"How the city attracts all types and how the unwary must suffer from ignorance of its ways."

"His motto had become money, money, money. This was the way people of the city realized themselves."

"We want a new life, new opportunities ... We want to live there for some time -- but only for some time ! We have our homeland here and must come back when we can answer your father's challenge ! When we have done something, become something!"

"But now things are different. Yes, things are gradually passing into African hands. Soon al the power will be in our hands. It's worth fighting for."

"He looked out of the window, as if the interview gave him some pain, and for a moment I studied him silently."

"He looked over his shoulder, like a thief entering a strong room, and his voice sank low."

"I wish I could tell you my story…I feel you would understand”…. to a stranger he met fortuitously on the train and for two days had travelled with in silence"

"....I was born sixty-five years ago, at a time when man was man, and women were won by those who deserved them."

"....Tonight, one of you is going to win the hand of my daughter Zarah. But he must be the bravest of you all. We live in times when a man’s might is his right."

"the cry of someone in great pain, a person who immediate help would mean everything."

"can you hear me now? I shall not rest, for I shall know no peace until I have avenged you."

"Not a war. But then, it was a war. When the forest burns do the locusts stop to say goodbye?"

"I say there has been a war. If a fish comes out of the water and says the crocodile has one eye, who has been there with him?"

"Night might convert the old devil into a fiend."

"A maiden is one of those things a man must not trust. By Allah, it is!"

"He who waits will see what is in the grass."

"You pay twenty head of cattle for a maiden because you are excited. Then when your head is cool, you begin to say "If I had known!"

"On the day of death, there is no medicine."