“The real question is what to live for. And I can't answer it. Except another one of your records. And another chance for me to write. Art for art's sake, corny as that sounds.”

“don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.”

“Writing is the only art form where a good number of the artists make a slice of their living criticizing one another in print, in public. ”

“In this country [England], writers write to entertain, they raise questions of individual existence...but for a Nigerian writer in my position you can't go into that. Literature has to be combative. You cannot have art for art's sake. This art must do something to transform the lives of a community, of a nation. And for that reason, literature has a different purpose altogether in that sort of society...The stories that I tell must have a different sort of purpose from the artist in the Western world...and art, in that instance, becomes so meaningful both to the artist and to the consumers of that art, because you do not just depend on them to read your books, you even have to live a life that they can emulate.”

“The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living…”

“Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.”