“In Ibuza sons help their father more than they help their mother. A mother's joy is only in the name. She worries over them,looks after them when they are small;but in the actual help on the farm ,the upholding of the family name,all belong to the father.”

“Don't blame anyone for what has happened to your father. Things have changed drastically since the days of his own youth,but he has refused to see the changes...The fact is that parents get only reflected glory from their children nowadays,whereas your father has invested in all of you, just as his father invested in him so that he could help on the farm. Your father forgot that he himself left the family farm to come to this place.”

“At home in Nigeria, all a mother had to do for a baby was wash and feed him and, if he was fidgety, strap him onto her back and carry on with her work while that baby slept. But in England she had to wash piles and piles of nappies, wheel the child round for sunshine during the day, attend to his feeds as regularly as if one were serving a master, talk to the child, even if he was only a day old! Oh, yes, in England, looking after babies was in itself a full-time job.”

“Nnu Ego was like those not-so well-informed Christians who,promised the Kingdom of Heaven,believed that it was literally just round the corner and that Jesus Christ was coming on the very morrow. Many of them would hardly contribute anything ton this world,reasoning, "What is the use? Christ will come soon" They became so insulated in their beliefs that not only would they have little to do with ordinary sinners,people going about their daily work, they even pitied them and in many cases looked down on them because the Kingdom of God was not for the likes of them. Maybe this was a protective mechanism devised to save them from realities too painful to accept.”

“She did not delude herself into expecting Francis to love her. He had never been taught how to love, but had an arresting way of looking pleased at Adah's achievements.”

“God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody’s appendage? she prayed desperately.”

“One thing she did know was the greatest book on human psychology is the Bible. If you were lazy and did not wish to work, or if you had failed to make your way in society, you could always say, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' If you were a jet-set woman who believed in sleeping around, VD or no VD, you could always say Mary Magdalene had no husband, but didn't she wash the feet of Our Lord? Wasn't she the first person to see our risen saviour? If, in the other hand, you believed in the inferiority of the blacks, you could always say, 'Slaves, obey your masters.' It is a mysterious book, one of the greatest of all books, if not the greatest. Hasn't it got all the answers?”