Unless I'm writing in the Igbo language, I use a language developed elsewhere, which is English. That affects the way I write. It even affects to some extent the stories I write.

In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.

There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.

People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.

Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.

The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.

When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate

If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.

Even that exquisite hunger he aroused at her, fiercely sweet as it might be, posed a threat to her sanity.

There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.

Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?

A cup at Starbucks isn't really that expensive when you consider what Victoria's Secret charges per cup.

The idea of Utopia is mischievous as well as unrealistic. And dull, to boot. Man is born pushing and shoving as the sparks fly upward.

I have always smoked and drunk and loved too much. In fact I have lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab will get me. Then I shall have died of living too much.

If a rise in wages does not raise prices, a fall will not reduce them.

After Voltaire: envy is chained to the portico of the temple of glory and can neither enter nor leave.

I thought about telling him the truth: 'Oh, nothing. Just having my soul exorcised so I can roam around purgatory, looking for the ghost of the dead cowboy who used to live in my bedroom.

I'm perfectly happy about being superstitious and atheistic.