Top 982 Quotes & Sayings by Nigerian Authors - Page 2

God comes first. Paradise is not cheap.

They say to never underestimate anyone, but they don't tell you to overestimate people either, so I'm just going to do me.

The art, the greatness of the music, the experience of the music is what I'm about. I think most African artists have destroyed their artistry by commercialization, and I don't want to belong to that bag.

I learned that life will go through changes - up and down and up again. It's what life does.

My background playing soccer gave me a natural advantage over many of the American-born players.

There is no part of the world where corruption is absolutely eliminated.

Growing up, I was in and out of trouble in group homes and other institutions, and when I was 14, I was locked up in a psychiatric hospital for a number of months for behavioral problems.

Whenever I go back home to Nigeria now, I always bring a bag full of Manchester City shirts for the kids.

I'm appreciative that people appreciate the care I've taken of my feet.

I knew I was in charge when with the ball. But on the toughest defenders I faced, I would say that my African brothers were the ones. We have the same mentality and thought the same way. Osei Kuffour was the toughest of them all.

'Lagoon' is an ambitious novel.

I believe that it is not worth it to train from Monday to Friday just to have 20 minutes on the pitch or sit on the bench on Saturday.

I don't know, my parents were pretty open about a lot of things, especially my mom. And any kind of little crazy thing I was into, she was very supportive of. You know, whether it was BMX bike racing or being in the Boy Scouts or surfing or anything else, she always seemed to sort of support it.

I've always been curious about how much of our cultural baggage we bring to what and how we read. I suspect we bring a lot, although we like to think we don't.

We will work to bring an element of stability to the price of oil.

I have always believed in the ability that I have got.

People told me all of the time, 'You could be such a big star if you just talked about yourself more,' but I'm not good at that. It's always been about team.

I'm getting in the studio with everybody I've always wanted to work with. That's the amazing thing.

Any nation that does not emphasize integrity will always fail.

I've realized that I am very rarely honest. Outside of my family, I am very rarely honest when I step outside of the door.

I think, for women in particular, it's kind of like you're expected to get married, have a child, and then you get to be a person. But you don't need someone else - be it a spouse or child - to complete or validate your existence. Being human is enough and should be enough, and I hope that we all come to a point where we can accept that.

I was so focused on advancing in my career that I didn't have enough emotional capacity for dating.

I'm shy, but sometimes my voice is so clear and strong.

Do our children now have to choose between getting an education and dying? Some of us cannot move on and accept that kind of society.

I believe the more you come to Europe, it makes you a better player, and it gives them an advantage because the African style is different from the European style.

If you're only making an album every 10 years, it better be good.

I used to own two homes in Atlanta. But it was a lot of trouble. There are leaky roofs; you have to call people. It takes up too much time to own property everywhere. Now I stay at the St. Regis. I used to like cars a lot, too. I had 25 of them: Porsches, Ferraris.

I'm a practised writer now. But when I began, I had no idea what this was going to be. I just knew that there was something inside me that wanted me to tell who I was, and that would have come out even if I didn't want it.

I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we'd never smelled the fumes of petroleum.

One in four sub-Saharan Africans is Nigerian, and it has 140 million dynamic people - chaotic people - but very interesting people.

I work on my finishing every day in training.

I am a novelist. I traffic in subtleties, and my goal in writing a novel is to leave the reader not knowing what to think. A good novel shouldn't have a point.

If I had challenges in my company, I would not hesitate to sell assets to remain afloat, to get to the better times, because it doesn't make any sense for me to keep any assets and then suffocate the whole organization.

Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.

Changing position comes naturally to me, to be honest.

A lot of people hustle differently, and I was like, 'You know what, let me hustle and create, and let me have something to show,' cuz my hustle led to opportunity.

But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.

Africa cannot afford to underestimate the power of technology to fast-track the continent's rise. Emerging technologies have played extraordinary roles in every aspect of the continent's most touted successes.

I would try to write 'realistic' fiction, and someone would fly, or there would be a black hole full of demons or a girl who attracted frogs.

The foreign companies, especially oil prospects and development companies, have been in Nigeria for about two generations - 40 years and above and so on. So, they know the environment. They stayed that long. They continue to invest because they know the potential Nigeria has in oil and gas and the capacity of the people to learn and work hard.

There was a feeling during the years of George W. Bush's presidency that his gracelessness as well as his appetite for war were linked to his impatience with complexity. He acted 'from the gut,' and was economical with the truth until it disappeared.

I want a little black girl to pick up my book one day and see herself as the star. I want her to know that she's beautiful, and she matters, and she can have a crazy, magical adventure even if an ignorant part of the world tells her she can never be Hermione Granger.

When I hear about a player losing his money, I'll rarely, if ever, point a finger at the player because I know how difficult it is. It's not always, 'Look at this idiot who got paid all these millions of dollars and lost it all.' It may be more like, 'This naive kid with a million things going on in his life put his faith in the wrong people.'

I've realized I have not been completely honest with what I need and what I want and how I've been treated, and I haven't necessarily stood up for myself. I've not always stood completely in my power and spoken the truth.

The position I am playing at right wing-back, I know I can score goals there.

The most dangerous thing for an entrepreneur to do is to actually go into a business that he does not understand fully.

I'm told I'm like my father, and he was the most wonderful man. But I think he was gentler than me.

As far as producing, I was thrown into it on a film called Beasts of No Nation when we were in Ghana three months after I retired.

I've often dreamed about going back to Nigeria, but that's a very romantic notion. It's a hideous country to go to in reality.

All the cliches of glamorous sophistication have little appeal to me. Do I want to live the British version of 'Dynasty?' No thanks!

My music has never been a failure.

I knew I was Yoruba and Nigerian for the first 9 years of my life. I did not become conscious of my color and all that came with it until I moved to the United States with my family.

I'm not in it for the money. No, no. I like to run a business that's successful... I'm a very creative person.

But at the end of the day, the lottery of birth shouldn't determine your value to the world.

I'm shy, but sometimes my voice is so clear and strong. Your tongue moves, and the Arabic language is so beautiful.

Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.

I think there is this narrative that if you are a black woman, and you are strong, and you are educated, it's like, 'Good luck getting a black man.'

When you get to that level, it's not a matter of talent anymore - because all the players are so talented - it's about preparation, about playing smart and making good decisions.

I think we should be very worried because, with technology, Boko Haram and other terrorists have become very mobile in all continents, not only in Africa but also in Europe, America, and Asia.

Being from Africa is the best thing that could have ever, ever happened to me. I cannot see it any other way. All of my fundamental principles that were instilled in me in my home, from my childhood, are still with me.