And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.
The Lagos of my childhood was a well-laid-out maritime city.
We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
I like to say, 'I spend one-third of my time in Nigeria, one-third in Europe or America, and one-third on a plane.'
Some people think the Nobel Prize makes you bullet-proof. I never had that illusion.
I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space.
And gradually they're beginning to recognize the fact that there's nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it's sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.
I like my peace and quiet whenever I can grab it.
I cannot belong to a nation which permits such barbarities as stoning to death and amputation - I don't care what religion it is.
I ceased using words like optimism and pessimism a long time ago.
In the world of literature, I see prizes as more of a duty to the craft itself, rather than as something for the individual.
My father was a schoolteacher, and so I had the advantage of both western educational instruction in the school, as well as what you might call the process of imbibing the traditional processes of education instruction around me.
Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?
A tiger does not shout its tigritude, it acts.