Binyavanga Wainaina

I'm not even sure I want to use the term 'coming out.' ”

I believe in, and will to the best of my ability fight for, equal rights and freedom of opinion for everyone, regardless of colour, religion, nationality, orientation - you know the rest. ”

It's like I was always not quite sure even how to move in space somehow; I would watch people and then copy them. I found it really hard to walk straight. My brother was always on at me for walking off the pavement. I guess I always expected people to bring me back into line. ”

I'm an African. I was brought up here; my home is here. Being an Afropolitan, I am here to stay. ”

There's no point for me in being a writer and having all these blocked places where I feel I can't think freely and imagine freely. There just really is no point. ”

Living in South Africa and periodically coming back to Kenya, my relationship with officialdom in Kenya was just insane. ”

All people have dignity. There's nobody who was born without a soul and a spirit. ”

I love playing with words and texture. ”

When I went to live in South Africa, I immediately began to understand what went wrong. Because here was a place supposed to be under apartheid - I arrived there in 1991 - but here a black person had more say and had more influence over his white government than an average Kenyan had over the Moi government. ”

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel prize. ”