Fiction basically is a form of gossip where you want to enter other people's lives, the lives of people you don't know, and you want to know what's going to happen to them.

I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.

Don't put things off till it's too late. You are the DJ of your fate.

Put your backbone where your wishbone is.

The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.

And an equation is the same whether it's written in red or green ink

I certainly think its very important that writers as citizens - not necessarily as writers, but just as ordinary citizens - should talk about things that matter to them.

What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.

I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.

I think if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.

To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.

He’d pushed it back, where he’d kept the thought for weeks, but it wouldn’t stay. Wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t let him go.

Oh, oh, oh I can't do that and that... Okay I will do that, ... I gonna read this book, I will check out this film and in the end few of them have read the book or the books and the film or the films.

I want to put a ding in the universe.

I usually plan to read a book for a half-hour before bed, but then I end up staying awake until 3 A.M. to finish it. Fortunately, my dog doesn't mind when I keep the bedside lamp on.

Nobody cares if you're on the cover of a magazine!

These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade.

Attitudes are the forerunners of conditions.

I've always been a teaser, even as a kid.

Things are only impossible until somebody does what another believes can't be done.

What is Africa, anyway? Even I don't know what Africa is, entirely. But I know that it's not some of these simplified sound bites you hear in America.