“I go from exasperation to a state of collapse, then I recover and go from prostration to Fury, so that my average state is one of being annoyed.”

“The collapse of the state in this large swathe of Africa meant that its people either relied on the charity of outsiders or took to violence. I must have looked bit dejected because Louise tried to lighten my mood. 'From my point of view as a church worker,it's great.'she said.When I go on leave back to the UK and I go into a church on Sunday,I am the youngest person there by a long way. But here in the Congo,I am always the oldest.”

“I used to think that I wouldn't change anything from my past, because doing so would inevitably affect who I am now. But considering my current state, I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to go back in time to fix things.”

“My political position springs from my being a novelist. In so far as I am concerned, politics and the novel are an indivisible case and I can categorically state that I became politically committed because I am a novelist, not the opposite.”

“This is, I believe, it: not the crude anguish of physical death but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed to pass from one state of being to another.”

“I have learnt from the politics of my great country, Nigeria that there is nothing wrong with the heads of states, but there is something wrong with the state of the heads.”