African Authors Quotes

In any case how many took the oath and are now licking the toes of the whiteman?No, you take an oath to confirm a choice already made. The decision to lay or not lay your life for the people lies in the heart. The oath is the water sprinkled on a man's head at baptism ~ Ngugi Wa Thiongo

Don't be in the Money Making Business; be in the Business Making Money. ~ Kayambila Mpulamasaka

Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa's souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind? How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go? How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa? ~ Ngugi Wa Thiongo

Third World is a state of the mind and until we change our attitude as Africans, if there is a fourth, fifth and even sixth world, we will be in it. ~ Patrick L.O. Lumumba

It was as if hell itself had taken human form and come up from the abyss. ~ Brima Lamin & Chantale Wesley-Lamin, The Walk - Memoir Of A Liberian Civil War Survivor, 2016

Contemplating while barefoot on the grounds my father and grandfather walked, I saw my life clearly. With African sun nibbling on my dark skin and gentle winds soothing my foreboding, my past life and current responsibilities overwhelmed me occasionally. Abundant tears flowed freely. Dripping on my face and clothes. Travelling through the ancient roads created by my forefathers, grasslands, trees and anthills kept me company. A lonely journey. I knew that nothing remains the same, but ones past never changes. Even in the loneliness of my past, I accepted that you cannot effectively go forward without knowing how and where you started your journey. Even in that state of near dejection I was aware that my sojourn in foreign lands is not forever, but my lording of this beautiful land, my own Africa, where my spent body will finally rest someday, is for eternity. Nothing remains the same, but nothing ever changes. It depends on how you look at your life. ~ Fidelis O. Mkparu

IRONY
They invite you
to come view
artifacts
stolen
from your ancestors
in their museums
as their
"experts"
explain
your
ancient
Benin
kingdom ~ Ijeoma Umebinyuo

Alexa and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him who were raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for for choice and certainty. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If these walls could talk, the buildings would stutter, wouldn't remember their names. ~ NoViolet Bulawayo

After daybreak is when I will already have died. At that moment I will only know of beautiful things: the certainties, the desires. When the sun bathes me, I will be something else: without mirrors, without sadness. I will have passed away, but will have been reborn. I will whistle mellifluous melodies. Discredited but, in the end, light. ~ Ondjaki

At one level the story of the second fall of Zimbabwe can be read as tragic yet a courageous one: a simple but soaring binary about unfounded courage in the face of immeasurable oppression. But at another level, it is a window into a much more complex, perhaps even darker and sadder, narrative about contemporary slaveship and the terrible collision of aspiration and frustration and the need to survive that has been unleashed upon the people of Zimbabwe. Exploitation and oppression are not matters of race. ~ Thabo Katlholo

In this time of Covid-19 I feel an overwhelming exhilaration every morning that I have survived to see another day, and on Monday mornings that feeling of elation endows me with colorful words to express my gratitude to God for his gift of life. ~ Fidelis O. Mkparu, 2020

The multitude was a frothing octopus, pulsating anthropomorphically over the church steps. ~ Ondjaki

Don't you think our society is designed to kill in that way? Of course, you've surely heard about those tiny fish in the rivers of Brazil which attack the swimmer by the thousands, eat him up in a few moments in quick little mouthfuls and leave only a perfectly clean skeleton behind? So, that's the way they're constituted. 'Do you want a clean life, like everyone else?' Of course the answer is yes. How could you not? 'Fine. We'll clean you up. Here's a job, here's a family, here's some organized leisure.' And the little teeth bite into the flesh, right down to the bone. But i'm being unfair. I shouldn't have said, 'the way they're constituted', because after all, it's our way, too: it's a case of who strips whom. ~ Albert Camus

Work smartly, diligently and silently; One day your introduction will be "Google Me. ~ Kayambila Mpulamasaka

The window of her sadness was so vast that it almost opened a path to her soul. ~ Ondjaki

The night was so balmy that breathing ceased to be a habitual sensation, becoming much closer to something like the gaseous ingestion of a mango, the velvet caress of a hand or the soft skin of a fresh peach. Sleeping, lying down or sitting up, was, on that night, a divine human penitence, a miracle unexpected and unrealized, intuitive and peaceful in a unique opportunity. ~ Ondjaki

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten. ~ Chinua Achebe

I'm not perfect... but I am perfectly fine with being myself. ~ Kayambila Mpulamasaka

This epic is a humble appeal to this great continent, Africa: May we reclaim our rich and resplendent narrative; our foundation, our voice, our magnitude, our honour, our pride, our wisdom, our traditions, our past, our exceptional uniqueness, our failings, our triumphs and finally when all is said and done, our glory. ~ N.K. Read

Africa PRODUCES what it does NOT CONSUME and CONSUMES what it does NOT PRODUCE. ~ Ali A. Mazrui

I'll never forget the magic of our Saturday nights. Special moments carved in my mind by you the sculptor of my love. Let's dance the night away. Who needs music, when your heart already sings to me. ~ ~ Fidelis O Mkparu (2016), Author Of ‘Love’s Affliction’

Consistent action breeds satisfaction or frustration; either one or both are key ingredients for growth. ~ Kayambila Mpulamasaka

Looking at a king's mouth, ' said an old man, 'one would think he never sucked at his mother's breast. ~ Chinua Achebe

My point is that the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe ... I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

When I was a schoolgirl my safe haven was a place at the uninhabited part of my parents' house. I used to climb up to the large windowsill that was facing a spreading plum-tree in the garden. Reading books, or penning my own stories, diaries and poems, it was especially fun to rest there during the warmer seasons of the year with an open window, when the tree was all covered with tender, odorous blossom in spring, and with rich purple fruitage in summer. ~ Sahara Sanders

I would love to be the African leader that steps down, that overthrows this idea of a Big Man ruler. I don't want to stay in office forever. ~ Meles Zenawi

Consider the statistics that African American Males are stopped by the police more often, convicted for crimes more often and draw prison more often and draw longer prison sentences more often than their white counterparts. ~ The Prophet Of Life

They have clubbed us off the streets they are stronger they are rich they hire and fire the politicians the newspapereditors the old judges the small men with reputations the collegepresidents the wardheelers (listen businessmen collegepresidents judges America will not forget her betrayers) they hire the men with guns the uniforms the policecars the patrolwagons all right you have won you will kill the brave men our friends tonight (author's punctuation) ~ John Dos Passos

Writing is something you Do and not discuss. Talk is cheap, wishes are free and a fool is included with every purchase. So spend your time wisely. ~ Jaime Reed

The Dr. King holiday is not just for black people, African-Americans or people of African descent. ~ LZ Granderson

Neither nature, experience, nor probability informs these lists of 'entitlements', which are subject to no constraints except those of the mind and appetite of their authors. ~ Jeane Kirkpatrick

Now in the 1980s, I happened to notice that if you look at an aerial photograph of an African village, you see fractals. And I thought, 'This is fabulous! I wonder why?' And of course I had to go to Africa and ask folks why. ~ Ron Eglash

People who make snide comments to authors like "anyone can write a book" or "well, you did it, so obviously I can/it can't be that hard" or poke at a book because it's "romance" or "genre fiction" and act like that somehow makes it substandard because they don't read it ... well, ok, go ahead. Write a bestseller. Don't forget to go through the correct edit process. We'll wait. ~ Michelle M. Pillow

You can take the girl out of Mississippi but you can't take the Mississippi out of the girl. ~ Kristi Cook

Africa is not fulfilling people's hopes and aspirations. African leaders have not had an agenda that included governing Africa so that people would find their careers, their life, dreams and visions fulfilled here. ~ Ama Ata Aidoo

What I consider to be the barometer for what is a rock artist and what is not, is somebody who has a certain element of blues, even a hint of soul or blues music, derivative of African-American blues, folk, spiritual, or gospel. ~ Ian Astbury

It comes a point in which you don't know if you write books or the books write you ~ Robin Sacredfire

Look every creature from the window of compassion with the eyes of love! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I'd be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music. ~ Ahmet Ertegun

I sometimes wish I were African American because people don't bash them afterward. It's the hardest to be a woman. ~ Julie Delpy

Fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. Only Fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Proverbs 1:7 NLT ~ Eddie Johnson

To study its effect on a living, struggling human body, he meant. To do that, you would need the right combination of hospital facilities, BSL-4 facilities, dedicated and expert professionals, and circumstances. You couldn't do it during the next outbreak at a mission clinic in an African village. You would need to bring Ebola virus into captivity - into a research situation, under highly controlled scrutiny - and not just in the form of frozen samples. You would need to study a raging infection inside somebody's body. That isn't easy to arrange. He added: "We haven't had an Ebola patient yet in the US." But for everything that happens, there is a first time. ~ David Quammen

It's that drama that drives authors, you know. ~ Julie Kenner

Perhaps after a serious discussion and debate - the kind that HR 40 proposes - we may find that the country can never fully repay African Americans. But we stand to discover much about ourselves in such a discussion - and that is perhaps what scares us. The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper - America's heritage, history, and standing in the world. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

As an artist, it's a great opportunity to play a character like this [Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland]. And then, as a person, I had never been to the African continent. So, I knew, personally, it would reshape me. ~ Forest Whitaker

Books have always been living things to me. Some of my encounters with new authors have changed my life a little. When I have been perplexed, looking for something I could not define to myself, a certain book has turned up, approached me as a friend would. And between it's cover carried the questions and the answers I was looking for. ~ Liv Ullmann

MANIFESTO OF THE BRAVE AND BROKENHEARTED There is no greater threat to the critics and cynics and fearmongers Than those of us who are willing to fall Because we have learned how to rise With skinned knees and bruised hearts; We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending. When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free. So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes. We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted. We are rising strong. ~ Brene Brown

At some point I was a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men and Who Likes to Wear Lip Gloss and High Heels for Herself and Not For Men. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[Author's Note:] It took me four years to research and write this novel, so I began long before talk about migrant caravans and building a wall entered the national zeitgeist. But even then I was frustrated by the tenor of the public discourse surrounding immigration in this country. The conversation always seemed to turn around policy issues, to the absolute exclusion of moral or humanitarian concerns. I was appalled at the way Latino migrants, even five years ago - and it has gotten exponentially worse since then - were characterized within that public discourse. At worst, we perceive them as an invading mob of resource-draining criminals, and at best, a sort of helpless, impoverished, faceless brown mass, clamoring for help at our doorstep. We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings. People with the agency to make their own decisions, people who can contribute to their own bright futures, and to ours, as so many generations of oft-reviled immigrants have done before them. ~ Jeanine Cummins

Even if Zuma was to develop the authoritarian impulses of a Mugabe, he would be checked - not least by his own party, which set a continental precedent by ousting Thabo Mbeki in 2007, after it felt he had outstayed his welcome by seeking a third term as party president. The ANC appears to have set itself against that deathtrap of African democracy: the ruler for life. ~ Mark Gevisser

Certainly the highest posthumous praise that can be conferred upon any writer is the assertion that his or her writing permanently altered the literary landscape for the better, opening new textual doors and engaging new readers. That the author's oeuvre was essential and irreplaceable and transformative. ~ Paul Di Filippo

Our Voice is our most powerful tool against these evil people who prey on the innocent, we should never be silent and let them continue to harm people. By being silent we are telling them it is "Okay to continue". I firmly believe if you choose to stand with those who wish to keep the victim silent you are yourself guilty of a crime against humanity
- Misty Griffin ~ Misty Griffin

To understand how that astounding moral blindness was possible, it is helpful to think of the workers of an armament plant who rejoice in the 'stay of execution' of their factory thanks to big new orders, while at the same time honestly bewailing the massacres visited upon each other by Ethiopians and Eritreans; or to think how it is possible that the 'fall in commodity prices' may be universally welcomed as good news while 'starvation of African children' is equally universally, and sincerely, lamented. ~ Zygmunt Bauman

The disadvantages and dangers of the author's calling are offset by an advantage so great as to make all its difficulties, disappointments, and maybe hardships, unimportant ... Nothing befalls him that he cannot transmute into a stanza, a song, or a story, and having done this, be rid of it. The artist is the only free man. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Authors are sick people. ~ Sarah M. Eden

They are a brilliant device for shape-shifting as we can slip into the skin of authors from other times, other cultural backgrounds, brilliant minds who give us a new perspective on life and the world - something we all need from time to time. - Cornelia Funke ~ Jen Campbell

I keep in touch with my fans by keeping a blog online and I try to answer questions every day. I also have a twitter and a facebook. I think that social networking gives authors a unique insight in the minds of their fans and for me that is very valuable. ~ Cassandra Clare

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying. ~ Anton Chekhov

No man, however civilized, can listen for very long to African drumming, or Indian chanting, or Welsh hymn singing, and retain intact his critical and self-conscious personality. ~ Aldous Huxley

[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity. ~ Horace Walpole

In a best-selling book, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs (reprinted nine times by 1935), a pair of consumer-advocate authors complained that American citizens had become test animals for chemical industries that were indifferent to their customers' well-being. The government, they added bitterly, was complicit. ~ Deborah Blum

When I conjure these memories, they are of the present to me, because after all, the artist is a kind of enchanter in time. ~ Romare Bearden

There is no pain and there are no sorrows. They no longer have permission to live in my today or my tomorrow. ~ Steven Cuoco

We can, following the exemple of Kant, consider the moral development and improvement of men, as the supreme goal of human evolution. ~ African Spir