"Today, hundreds of mothers in Lagos and the improved birth rate which places Lagos ahead of the rest of the country owe much to Dr Abimbola Awoliyi."

"Dr. Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi was a pacesetter and a pioneer. She was someone who proved time and again that women can do it too."

"Let us be brave: we have heard of men shaking in their trousers, but who ever heard of a woman shaking in her skirt?"

"She spoke the language of the worker, and she was herself an ordinary factory worker. When she said what she stood for, she evoked emotions no other person could evoke;Winnie Madikizela-Mandela"

"She can toss an audience on her little finger, get men grunting with shame and a feeling of smallness;Ezekiel Mphahlele"

"My mother firmly believed our tears shall be wiped away in the next world. I believed we should start enjoying life here."

"We feel small to say thanks all the time."

"Those who make an occasional marketing expedition to or to the region of can buy Greek cheese and Calamata olives, from the Middle East, little birds preserved in oil from Cyprus, stuffed vine leaves from Turkey, Spanish sausages, Egyptian brown beans, chick peas, , Spanish, Italian, and Cypriot olive oil, Italian salame and rice, even occasionally Neapolitan Mozzarella cheese, and honey from . These are the details which complete the flavour of a Mediterranean meal, but the ingrediens which make this cookery so essentially different from our own are available to all; they are the olive oil, wines, lemons, garlic, onions, tomatoes, and the aromatic herbs and spices which go to make up what is so often lacking in English cooking: variety of flavour and colour, and the warm, rich, stimulating smells of genuine food."

"... I went on a short trip to and , to see an exhausting exhibition of Piedmontese baroque at , the former palace of the royal house of Savoy, and more enjoyably, to eat s and , white truffles with , white truffles and scrambled eggs, white truffles spread on bread and butter. My article Trufflesville Regis, was written rather hurriedly for the Spectator, and contained any number of Italian spelling mistakes. Nobody complained except the Italian friend I had been with on the trip. In due course she corrected them for me, and a second version of the article was published by in his Compleat Imbiber."

"first met Elizabeth David in 1984, or thereabouts, at Hilaire, the Chelsea restaurant of which he was chef. She came for supper with , and the widow of the poet was wearing – he remembers it vividly – a polka-dot dress. "I was very excited," he says. "Because I was a fan." ... at the end of her lunch, the young Hopkinson left his kitchen, clutching a copy of An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, David's collected journalism and the book of hers that he loves the most. She duly signed it for him, and so began a friendship that would last until she died in 1992."

"The Elizabeth David recipe that I love and remember the most is the delicious from her Italian Food book. It's just so different from all the traditional Bolognese sauces we're used to, but I actually think it's loads better. Using chicken livers to give a lovely earthy base to the sauce is genius, and I seem to remember she also did a variation with veal, which surprised me, but really works. There's butter in there instead of olive oil, which would mortify a few Italian nonnas, and also ham, but it's a fascinating way of recreating a classic sauce. All through my career, I've been inspired by female cooks – , of course; , , – and Elizabeth David is up there with the best."

"I was, I did, but I will let it be./Tonight I must hold dear/Whatever brought me here."

"Excuse me for living,/But, since I am living,/Given inches, I take yards,/Taking yards, dream of miles/And a landscape, unbounded/And vast in abandon./And you dreaming the same."

"All, all runs wild, all wild and uncontrolled./A toad hops from my mouth instead of gold."

"I learned the speech of birds; now every tree/Screams out to me a baleful prophecy."

"No god came down, my brothers,/To breathe on them, my sisters./Their bodies made a mountain/That never touched the heavens./Whose lightning struck the killers?/Whose rain drowned out the fires?/My brothers and my sisters,/No angel leaned upon them./No miracle could shield them/From the cold human hands."

"They went hunting lions/But a flea attacked them/And their hunters' passion/Narrowed to a flea."

"they swarmed everywhere,/the unwritten poems."

"My spoon was lifted when the bomb came down/That left no face, no hand, no spoon to hold./A hundred thousand died in my home town./This came to pass before my soup was cold. ("Epitaph: 1945")"

"Hungry, not one word here/is as good as bread."

"Her feelings are deep and expressed without shame or coyness. She's straightforward. She offers the difficult product-clarity. She makes a music for which readers of poetry have been lonesome for years."

"Tomorrow we cross/The borders of loss"

"Neither destroyed nor diamond/I walk from the core of your flame,/The rain does not hiss when it hits me,/And I answer to my old name."

"My words may turn into stones/as easily as a man/turned one day into silence."

"His praise like rain runs down the gutters"

"When there was one kiss/against ten curses/and one loaf/against ten hungry/and one hello/against ten goodbyes/the odds stalked/your crooked steps."

"Unmade by what has made me"

"In silence is the smell of treachery, and sanction/Of hunger, and therefore I shout./But in the storm of sound I clothe myself/In a hush like fur."

"Born of a war, I was always aching and straining/To nuzzle myself into peace./Peace when it came was hunted and haunted, and stayed/Just for a moment."

"The hunters hang onto their man/And merrily pass by/Where I scot-free and you scot-free/Stand in the shadow of Why."

"I must learn again to give it welcome."

"You could be anything in front of that microphone, and that is what was expected of you."

"I will never carry a pass!"

"At some point in life, she began giving her birth date as St. Patrick's Day 1918."

"She's an actress. . . . She was a little bit Irish. And she decided she wanted to be two years younger."

"I feel that the people who pushed me the most, including the teachers, are the ones who made the greatest impression on me and loved me the most."

"I think there is a genetic factor involved [...] If there is a history of alcoholism in your family, watch it."

"I don't think the Hollywood community is interested in what I can do, That's all right. I've never looked for a job in my life, and I'm not going to start now. I have plenty to keep me busy.""

"An honest look because one of the things a recovered alcoholic must learn is honesty. I have to live with myself."

"I believe we should learn to appreciate our loneliness, loneliness is marvelous."

"I didn't appreciate it at the time, When you're young, you're stupid. If someone had said to me, Will you play Saint Joan"l with six rehearsals? and then halfway across the Atlantic came the cable, Would I play Pygmalion as well?, I mean I'd have a sort of nervous collapse now. Then, I didn't."

"Oh, I think a little posterity must always be nice, After I'm dead I'll probably be a cult and they'll have entire seasons of me at the National Film Theatre. Thank God I won't have to watch them all."

"Thinking back, I don't know how I had the courage. That's one of the unkindest things nature does; it takes away your courage."

"I just thought I’d always wanted to show off; quite honestly, acting is showing off."

"I sometimes think to myself, in the middle of doing G.B.S., What on Earth am I doing? It's not like acting another writer's words."

"I was afraid that if I went to Hollywood, I might be faced with the danger of being built up into a player who always features in the same kind of roles."

"As the protagonist, I became louder and louder each time we re-shot it until I decided to cut right back for the final take. She said, "I knew you’d get it." She understood in the nicest possible way that if I was worth my bread and butter, I would realise shouting wasn’t the way forward."

"This photo of Wendy Hiller and me with the palace of Versailles fountains in the background was taken in 1981 on the set of Miss Morison's Ghosts. It means a lot to me because not only was it a lovely experience, but it was also the start of a great friendship that lasted 22 years."

"She was never afraid of over-acting when she felt instinctively that the role required her to do so and, as Princess Charlotte, she was in turn so fierce and so gentle that, on some evenings, after she had died in the second act it seemed a waste of time continuing with the play."

"In one sense, Wendy was a kind of anti-star: one husband, one house (in Beaconsfield), one family. Although she did occasionally travel to Hollywood (notably in 1958 for Separate Tables) and Broadway (where her greatest success was in The Aspern Papers in 1962), she lived a relatively domestic life."