Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.

The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.

You see, I was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would keep one another interested, and you weren't allowed to tell stories that everybody else knew. You had to dream up new ones.

An artist sees that which does not yet exist. He or she imagines a future others cannot perceive. The artist - and the writer - reshapes reality so that it becomes even more vivid and lasting.

Justice is to be found only in imagination.

Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us haven't pondered the concept of infinity or imagined the possibility of time travel? In one of her poems, Emily Bronte likens imagination to a constant companion, but I prefer to think of it as a built-in entertainment system.

I can always be distracted by love, but eventually I get horny for my creativity.