"Change was impossible to predict. A tempo, a mood would have settled over the house, over guests, relations, casual visitors, poor relations, 'cousins,' strays – all recognized within a tangible pattern of feeling – and then it would happen!"

"It is time to commence the mental shifts for admittance to yet another irrational world of adults and their discipline"

"Wild Christian shushed him, but I saw no difference in both their attitudes. I was overwhelmed by only one fact- there was neither justice nor logic in the world of grown-ups"

"Yes, you know damned well what you should have done if you sincerely desired their surrender. You could have dropped it [the atom bomb] on one of their mountains, even in the sea, anywhere they could see what would happen if they persisted in the war, but you chose instead to drop it on peopled cities. I know you, the white mentality: Japanese, Chinese, Africans, we are all subhuman. You would drop an atom bomb on Abeokuta or any of your colonies if it suited you"

"Things do not always happen as one plans. There are many disappointments in life. There is always the unexpected. You plan carefully, you decide on one step after another, and then...well, that is life. We are not God. So you see, one cannot afford to be weighed down by the unexpected. You will find that only determination will bring one through, sheer determination. And faith in God. Don't ever neglect your prayers...."

"Because he could not bear to let honour fly out of doors, he stopped it with his life. The son has proved the father Elesin, and there is nothing left in your mouth to gnash but infant gums."

"Then I slowly realised that your greatest art is the art of survival. But at least have the humility to let others survive in their own way."

"Is there now a streak of light at the end of the passage, a light I dare not look upon?"

"You know this business has to be stopped, Simon. And you are the only man who can do it."

"When they get this way there is nothing you can do. It's simply hammering against a brick wall."

"This market is my roost. When I come among the women I am a chicken with a hundred mothers."

"A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces"

"I have always held the view that when you have that situation, you must refuse to be part of it"

"For me, justice is the first condition of humanity."

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away"

"Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress truth."

"What is one flesh from another? So I tried it again, just to be sure of myself. It was the first step to power, you understand. Power in its purest sense. The end of inhibitions. The conquest of weakness of your too human flesh with all its sentiment."

"Power comes from bending Nature to your will."

"It’s my life that’s gone into his. I haven’t burrowed so deep to cast good earth onto worthless seeds…."

"God rot your coward bones! Do you think not enough people die here that you must come and threaten me with death. You spurious spew. You instrument of mortgage. You unlicensed appendage of the steering wheel..."

"...There are dangers in the Quest I know, but the Word may be found companion not to life, but Death."

"Do you take me for a common gawper after misery?... My bed is among the dead, and when the road rises a victory cry to break my sleep I hurry to a disgruntled swam of souls full of spite for their rejected bodies"

"Nonsense, we run a bus. The seats face where you are going"

"You say you get pride and you are still a conductor on a bolekaja."

"It's a foolish elder who becomes a creditor, since he must wait until the other world, or outlive his debtors."

"If the young sapling bends, the old twig if it resists the wind, can only break."

"When a squirrel seeks sanctuary up the iroko tree the hunter's chase is ended."

"Age has shrunk the tortoise and the shell is full of air pockets."

"When the dog hides a bone does he not throw up sand?"

"The ostrich also sports plumes but I've yet to see that wise bird leave the ground."

"We lift the King's umbrella higher than men but it never pushes the sun in the face."

"Only a foolish child lets a father prostrate to him."

"It is a mindless clown who dispenses thanks as a fowl scatters meal not caring where it falls."

"It was our fathers who said, not I - a crown is a burden when the king visits his favourite's chambers. When the king's wrapper falls off in audience, wise men know he wants to be left alone."

"The nude shanks of a king is not a sight for children - it will blind them."

"A shilling's vegetable must appease a halfpenny spice."

"A King does not become a menial just because he puts down his crown to eat."

"The descendants of our great forebears...let them symbolize all that is noble in our nation.""

"The guests we were sent are slaves and lackeys. They have only come to undermine our strength. To preach to us how ignoble we are."

"When your businessmen ruin the lesser ones, do you go crying to them?""

"Doesn't she look like the type that would drive men to madness and self-destruction?"

"Recognition is the curse I carry with me."

""I have a particular aversion to being mauled by women"

"Why don't you confess it? You are the type who would rather die in your bed."

"Adenebi becomes defensive and says, "Have you no feeling for those who died?""

"Aroni has taken control. That is when the guilty become afraid."

"These rites of the dead. I do not know why you take them on,""

"This whole family business sickens me. Let everybody lead their own lives,""

"The world is big, but the dead are bigger"