Top 397 Quotes & Sayings by Kenyan Authors - Page 2

I would say that Breaking2 was my best race because I was running against something no one had done before.

When I was a little boy, I always wanted to run. I loved competing with my friends.

But when you have bad governance, of course, these resources are destroyed: The forests are deforested, there is illegal logging, there is soil erosion. I got pulled deeper and deeper and saw how these issues become linked to governance, to corruption, to dictatorship.

I've always found the secret is to stay fit and treat sport as a profession. I chose sport as a passion.

It's my responsibility to put a team on the floor that will win, and that attracts players.

I was still young when I missed Beijing. I was favourite to win a medal but I knew I had time. My coach advised me to stay at school and finish my exams. Even if I had gone and won the Olympics, I might not have handled the pressure. So I moved on.

I wish I had not believed that my work would speak for itself; the working world requires a bit more than that.

I always ask the question: As more Africans are going online, are they finding content that is meaningful and relevant to them, or are they just consuming from everywhere else. As Africans, we have the capacity to generate our own content.

What is astonishing is that globalised technology, like Whatsapp and Viber, really gives a lot of leeway to negotiating spaces and to keeping one's identity. So people are able to be more receptive as a gay community to be part of an environment that is going to challenge the law.

It's a great thing that the NBA has done in Africa to develop the game.

I enjoy the simplistic training and life in marathon. You run, eat, sleep, walk around - that's how life is. You don't get complicated. The moment you get complicated it distracts your mind.

There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.

I want to show the world that you can go beyond your thoughts, you can break more than you think you can break.

We play sports to win.

As much as innovation is important, I think we also need to just make stuff. If we look at Kenya, where I'm from, as an example, we are importing everything down to toothpicks.

Some people get turned on by my work, and it sells, but what drives me is the process of making it.

It's not good to focus on one person or two persons about being your rivals. The important thing is just to train hard and be ready for the competition and to prepare for the races so that in case of anything that comes out, you are able to handle it.

Our interest is in showing that homophobia is not part of the agenda for a new Africa.

If you are humble, your concentration will be very high. That's the way to go in sports.

If you want to break through, your mind should be able to control your body. Your mind should be a part of your fitness.

It was a very hard life. As I got older, the family was depending very much on me. My two older brothers got married, so they had their own families depending on them. I had seven people relying on me, so I worked in a grocery store.

We all have the things that we all have to work on, and things we have to get better at.

Athletics is not so much about the legs. It's about the heart and mind.

I missed the final of the World Championships in 2009, but I told the coach I would break the world record in 2010. Which I did. Then in 2011 I won the World Championships and now in 2012 it is the Olympics. That is how I have been working.

New York is the only city that I have ever lived in that I have felt at home.

To run a big marathon and win takes five months. When I'm on the starting line, my mind starts reviewing what I have been doing the last five months. I believe in my training, and I treat myself as the best one standing on that line.

Basketball without Borders made me who I am and it's just something that is such a huge part of my life.

Boy or girl, the youth of the world deserve opportunity and we as leaders have to be the ones that at least create a path for them.

'Misguided Little Unforgivable Hierarchies' is a piece that I did around the time that I was very frustrated and angry with the fact that the U.S., where I live, had decided to pull itself into another war. I was really angry.

The era of roadside decisions, declarations have gone. My government's decisions will be guided by teamwork and consultations.

I promise not to let you down. I will be your servant with all humility and gratitude.

I love magazines because they're so dispensable, and they're so quickly consumed. In that way, they're quite honest. They're unashamed about how small an amount of time they're trying to keep our attention.

Every day is different. There's always, as we call it in the NBA, a 'drama,' a team's drama, there's always something.

We invite all those who have been outside Kenya to come back and join in the rebuilding of our new nation.

We all have weaknesses.

When you think of all the conflicts we have - whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global - these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resources are scarce, if these resources are degraded, there is going to be competition.

Our job is to find players younger, where they are able to play from 11 years old and grow up playing the game. Rather than, you start playing when you are 17 or 18 and you don't get the opportunity to do anything with your career.

The problem is that during the 1980s, a decade of heavy poaching, the elephants retreated to safer areas. And now people have moved into the corridors once used by the elephants.

If something hurtful enters your body, you create something beautiful to protect yourself from it. That's my philosophy.

My first race was in October 2001 in Kapsabet, Kenya. It was a 10km road race. I was excited and I was happy to know I am good in running.

I think a lot of Africans in my generation, and especially those of us who have spent time overseas before coming back, are quite comfortable moving between the two worlds, though always with a lens of, 'What can we do to help our countries or regions?'

I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me.

In kindergarten, we had this Irish Catholic headmistress called Sister Leonie, and I remember she would tell us, say, to put the crayons in the box. I remember thinking, 'Why is everyone finding this so easy? Why should the crayons be in the box?'

Scientific innovations continually provide us with new means of analyzing the finds.

I'm concerned about what I see is the fetishization around entrepreneurship in Africa. It's almost like it's the next new liberal thing. Like, 'Don't worry that there's no power because, hey, you're going to do solar and innovate around that.'

I have a mandate to win and that's what I want to do.

Where the marathon starts is after 30 kilometers. That's where you feel pain everywhere in your body. The muscles are really aching, and only the most prepared and well-organized athlete is going to do well after that.

It is important to nurture any new ideas and initiatives which can make a difference for Africa.

People reach an age... where somebody else's platform is no longer yours.

Motherhood is the ultimate call to sacrifice.

It's like the first man to go to the moon, I will be the first man to run under two hours, this is crucial.

I think there's sort of an extra oomph with the younger people coming up. They're writing. They're communicating. They're sharing, and they are very much technology-driven.

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.

One of my first races came over 10km in 2002. I won that race and it felt great. I would say that is when I first fell in love with running.

It's important to remember that we evolved. Now, I know that's a dirty word for some people, but we evolved from common ancestors with the gorillas, the chimpanzee and also the bonobos. We have a common past, and we have a common future.

Ninety percent of my mentors have been male, most of them with very little in common with me on a personal level - from life experience, work experience, backgrounds, etc.

I am running to make history, to show that no human is limited. It's not about money, it's about showing a generation of people that there are no limits.

It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.

For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all.

One of Giants of Africa's fundamental mottos is - Dream Big. We believe that basketball can be used as a tool to educate and develop youth around the world to accomplish their dreams.