When writing screenplays, it's a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn't appear on the screen.

As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.

As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.

Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide.

So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.

The summer I finished my first novel Ghana Must Go, I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lomé to Cotonou to the deliciously named Ouagadougou.

I wouldn't mind my book being called an African novel if it didn't invite lazy readings.

Being a twin, and being my sister's twin, is such a defining part of my life that I wouldn't know how to be who I am, including a writer, without that being somehow at the centre.

I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.

The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.

I'm not sure where I'm from! I was born in London. My father's from Ghana but lives in Saudi Arabia. My mother's Nigerian but lives in Ghana. I grew up in Boston.

By choosing positivity you become a contender for the human spirit giving hope to those in need.

In a spirit of hope and new beginnings, we linked arms like a couple of kids. Pushing aside sad thoughts, we strode off into our future.

I'm as happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!

You cannot build up a character in a solitude; you need a formed character to stand a solitude.

What I do with my kids is - and I think they probably do ignore us - is No Alcohol. If they're drunk they will be grounded for time immemorial.

A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.

Being an umpire wasn't such a tough job. You really have to understand only two things and that's maintaing discipline and knowing the rule book.

Delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion; it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and our misery.

A little stress and adventure is good for you, if nothing else, just to prove you are alive.

The market is like the police: of course you need it, but if it becomes the central organizing principle of your culture then you're in deep trouble.