"A writer is going to write a novel and that writer may or may not only be from Uganda. I think too often when people are thinking about writers from the continent, there is this huge responsibility to produce some kind of great African book and that is nonsense. One writer writes one book that does or doesn’t succeed and that book will not necessarily be a Ugandan novel"

"I would be terrified but you know, terror is not a reason not to do something infact that is a good reason to do something"

"Sometimes I wish things had been done better but I try to switch off that side of my brain but you will know yourself, it is impossible to do that. And if I want to change too much then I will stop reading the book. I used to have a rule that I would finish every book I started but if it is not good enough I will stop because now I realise I have got limited reading time so it has to be really good"

"Nothing is a guilty pleasure. I am a big science fiction junkie. I love crime fiction. But sometimes you reach the decision that life is too short. I have so many hours left to me and there are other things I need to read"

"In the Midwest, the weather is extreme; when it is hot, it is very, very hot and when it is cold, it is very, very cold. All that had a very big impact on me and my mother says I did not speak for six months while I was figuring things out and when I did start speaking English I had a stutter"

"But I think that moving around absolutely has an impact. It’s your connection with language. I remember moving from one language to another as a child and finding it deeply traumatic. The fact that people who looked like me could not understand the language I was speaking had a big impact on me so when I first learnt how to speak English I had a very bad stutter"

"The National Conversation is an invitation to join some of our country’s most talented thinkers as they explore the ways in which literature can have an impact on our lives, and to engage in finding solutions to the challenges facing writers and readers in our complex world. Beyond the questions we’ll ask is the real hope that this will indeed be a conversation about an art form that is as varied and dynamic as those who produce it. A conversation that includes any and all of us who have ever fallen into the pages of a book and found a place that felt like home"

"As we begin a national conversation on our reading, writing and engagement with books, it seems fitting to provoke a discussion about the reasons we think books (and their authors) are important"

"Books are about expressing ourselves as human beings, connecting with each other, telling our stories and imagining new worlds and new possibilities"

"Books are for pleasure and entertainment. For escape. They are also for information, discovery, guidance, discussion, debate and so much else besides"

"“my kids joke that I’m going to die with a pencil in my hand”"

"“This is a wonderful opportunity to be part of a team that has, over time, published with such great flair and innovation. I am excited to be joining Canongate and to have such an inspiring brief—to contribute to a list that reflects range, ambition, passion and a genuine belief in the power of writing to enrich and inform.”"

"There has been a way of seeing Africa in terms of poverty and conflict which has become a kind of shorthand for the continent that still persists today."

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head"

"For a long time it was the view that because Africa didn't always write, or have written document for his history that means Africa didn’t document its history. That is not true"

"If you are always guided by passion and compassion, you will truly have a life of meaning."

"If situations arise where people feel that they have grievances, such grievances should be dealt with in the appropriate way with full transparency, using all the proper governance structures at hand."

"Achebe gave a voice to Africans for generations to come, including my own."

"Her Majesty's reign and her devotion to public service remains an inspiration to many Islanders."

"I do not advocate neglecting your parents: honour and succour them, especially in their old age, but don’t stay at home and do housework when you long, body and soul, to fly to the uttermost ends of the earth, there to find your mission in life and your gift to the world."

"The Leeds Mercury has always taken a pride in stating fairly all points of view in public life."

"I have arranged the poems by women in a separate section, irrespective of whether British or American; not in any sense of sexual rivalry, but merely from a natural desire to give them prominence and to show that despite their lack of opportunity, women feel all the poetry of flight and are fully alive to all that progress in aviation means to the world."

"It is the woman herself that matters rather than her covering."