"There is a need to speak on something and I don’t agree with the status quo. The self-deprecation probably comes from not fitting in no matter how hard I try."

"When CNN does not reciprocate with simple engagement with our hills and valleys, our romantic ideals, often only with our traumas. And everyone in the world has trauma. If you know where Naples is or Mount Vesuvius, then you are clever."

"One of the greatest ironies of writing is that you can write for a hundred years, write reams, but until you have something that resembles a book, you are never allowed to call yourself an author."

"Investing one’s own disadvantage in words: Opening an artery onto the page, that kind of thing, apart from a love for the theme being written on."

"Parents have a lot of professing power over their children. Praise and admonishments are crafting tools like names."

"If one wants to be a good essayist, one needs to connect and do it at the level of the gut, infiltrate the blood–brain barrier and lose prestige or the footing of pride. Or shall I say, you have to give something of value away to gain the investment of the reader’s time and attention."

"There are so many dissimilarities, so many unique points of difference between this one country in Africa and the rest of the world."

"There are many things that happen in the human being that bypass the brain."

"The more handling of a wide variety of food that one can manage the more open one’s mind and palate."

"What better way to spend one’s time in the country of fringe dwellers than capitalising on one’s failures? Why wallow in failure? If you can’t beat them, or join them, then you write about them. Yes, it does end up as a kind of power and advantageous positioning in standing out from the crowd because most people don’t want fringe-dweller strength"

"In Nigeria, we have given ourselves no other option than the institutional use of the English language. We haven’t, in addition, provided the necessity and the resources of mastering the use of multiple languages. And that opportunity is so pertinent."

"There is nothing any of us can do about the fact that the world is shrinking so we need to learn how to speak more languages, not fewer."

"I believe this was their way of ensuring we understood our heritage, where we came from, who we were and what we stood for. I think that is really key for any child to know who they are and be proud and confident in that.""

"Men and women complement each other in a home and in the society at large. God has given each a place, a role and responsibilities. It does not make one any better than the other or give any the right to lord it over or ill-treat the other."

"My mum always taught us not to expect favours but to work hard to make our way in life and to aim to get things through merit."

"Bombing the Terrorists with planes from the skies is not enough, we have to go to the source of their sinning souls and bomb them, condemn them and shame them, with all the power of our pens, our computers, our smartphones and our creative works!"

"Our writers must continue to educate our people and promote the cause of nation-building by producing powerful, inspiring and enduring works of art."

"In a society, a woman should be able to tolerate others, work with others and maintain a very humble attitude towards others but at the same time be herself."

"....The prestige African literature enjoys globally today is a result of the ground-breaking work done by Achebe (especially with his Things Fall Apart) and a few other writers like him."

"Quiet people are the most dangerous."

"So long as a canvas is empty its potential is infinite… The empty canvas can become a gateway into the landscape of nightmares or a vision of sensual bliss."

"Craft is important. The greater the idea, the greater the craft you need."

"The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time."

"There will be changes. Coups. Soldiers everywhere. Ugliness. Blindness. And then when people least expect it a great transformation is going to take place in the world. Suffering people will know justice and beauty. A wonderful change is coming from far away and people will realise the great meaning of struggle and hope. There will be peace."

"Bad things will happen and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been suffering. So taste your grief to the fullest. Don’t try and press it down. Don’t hide from it. Don’t escape. It is life too. It is truth. But it will pass and time will put a strange honey in the bitterness. That’s the way life goes."

"Our society is a battlefield. Poverty, corruption and hunger are the bullets. Bad governments are the bombs."

"Be like the tortoise- grow a hard shell to protect your strong heart. Be like the eagle- soar above your pain and carry the banner and the wonder of our lives to the farthest corners of the world. Build your strength. Destiny is difficult."

"A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life."

"This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down."

"I love your loneliness. It is brave. It makes the universe want to protect you."

"Apart from a mark on my palm I had managed to avoid being discovered. It may simply have been that I had grown tired of coming and going. It is terrible to forever remain in-between."

"The clearing was the beginning of an expressway. Building companies had levelled the trees. In places the earth was red. We passed a tree that had been felled. Red liquid dripped from its stump as if the tree had been a murdered giant whose blood wouldn’t stop flowing."

"When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are."

"I kept looking forward the answer to things. I kept looking, and I never saw, and I became lost. I lost myself, lost my own reality."

"If your work can surprise you then you have started something worthwhile."

"For your reflections reflect on the things you do. And the things you do reflect on you."

"We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see."

"When I woke up I found myself in a coffin. My parents had given me up for dead. They had commenced the burial proceedings when they heard my fierce weeping. Because of my miraculous recovery they named me a second time and threw a party which they couldn’t afford.They named me Lazaro. But as I became the subject of much jest, and as many were uneasy with the connection between Lazaro and Lazarus, Mum shortened my name to Azaro."

"The road will never swallow you. The river of destiny will always overcome evil. May you understand your fate. Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger. Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you."

"One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us."

"A dream can be the highest point of a life"

"You are a mischievous one. You will cause no end of trouble. You have to travel many roads before you find the river of your destiny. This life of yours will be full of riddles. You will be protected and you will never be alone."

"In that land of beginnings spirits mingled with the unborn. We could assume numerous forms. Many of us were birds. We knew no boundaries. There was much feasting, playing, and sorrowing. We feasted much because of the beautiful terrors of eternity. We played much because we were free. And we sorrowed much because there were always those amongst us who had just returned from the world of the Living. They had returned inconsolable for all the love they had left behind, all the suffering they hadn’t redeemed, all that they hadn’t understood, and for all that they had barely begun to learn before they were drawn back to the land of origins."

""How many times had I come and gone through the dreaded gateway? How many times had I been born and died young? And how often to the same parents? I had no idea. So much of the dust of living was in me. But this time, somewhere in the interspace between the spirit world and the Living, I chose to stay."

"Don't neglect the gold in your own back yard."

"The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering."

"In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry."

"Learn to drink, my son. A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life."

"Before everything was born there was first the spirit. It is the spirit which invites things in, good things, or bad. Invite only good things, my son. Listen to the spirit of things. To your own spirit. Follow it. Master it. So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use. There is a stillness which makes you travel faster. There is a silence which makes you fly. If your heart is a friend of Time nothing can destroy you."

"Inverse of the word live is evil."