Top 982 Quotes & Sayings by Nigerian Authors - Page 17

Probably the biggest temptation that young writers face is to be entertaining, to show your bag of tricks and do a bit of tap dancing. I read a lot of things, and I keep seeing this brocade of voice where someone is trying to be too pally with you or ingratiating on the page.

Each one of us, and, indeed, all those who aspire to national leadership must bring their own visions, views and styles to the business of reforming Nigeria, and the search for solutions.

Let me make a solemn pledge before all of you, before the whole world and before God, that I will devote all my energy and all I possess in my power to serve the people of Nigeria and humanity.

As far as acting, I just went in and just started training. It was the first thing I did right when I retired. I just went in and found class, and found people, found the right coaches that could sort of just train me along.

Being a woman writer, I would be deceiving myself if I said I write completely through the eye of a man. There's nothing bad in it, but that does not make me a feminist writer. I hate that name. The tag is from the Western world - like we are called the Third World.

My least favorite thing or my pet peeve would be people who literally ignore the other people you're with, or the situation, and they just dive right in and cut off the conversation.

My very first story, I was around 5, and I really just wrote myself. When I was 5, I loved myself so much I gave myself a twin named Tomi. Everything started out fine. But then I didn't write another black character until I was 18.

In 'Open City,' there is a passage that any reader of Joyce will immediately recognise as a very close, formal analogue of one the stories in 'Dubliners.' That is because a novel is also a literary conversation.

When your maturity is derived from circumstantial factors other than faith, your level of maturity would continue to fluctuate rather than being stable. This is why I am enabled to maintain a balance and stable approach to the challenges that come my way every day. I am not moved by what people say or do concerning my relationship with God.

I grew up on a council estate.

I needed to create something I could take with me wherever I went.

If I had children, as soon as I have them, I'm teaching them everything I know. I don't want to feed you fairytales. Fairytales are nice. But they come to an end, and then you have to face reality.

I did a movie called 'The Savages' with Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, where I played a nurse, and it showed me in a different role from what I played on 'The Wire.' It showed my range as an actor.

The thing that the Nigerian government will do is to secure the environment. If the environment is not secured, then unfortunately, the investments wouldn't be coming in.

I think Black cinema is thought of in small terms. That's where most of the problems come from. When there's a film that has success, like in the '90s with the crime hood films; when one of them does well, it becomes the replication, or there's a romantic comedy that breaks out, it becomes a singular way of looking at it.

Whenever I make music, I just make it depending on however I feel at that moment and what I'm getting inspiration from, so it depends - whatever, it's just my mood.

I have my father's lopsided mouth. When I smile, my lips slope to one side. My doctor sister calls it my cerebral palsy mouth. I am very much a daddy's girl, and even though I would rather my smile wasn't crooked, there is something moving for me about having a mouth exactly like my father's.

In terms of people who want to be writers, I wish more people knew how much work it was.

Nobody just leaves medical school, especially given it's fiercely competitive to get in. But I had a sister who was a doctor, another who was a pharmacist, a brother who was an engineer. So my parents already had sensible children who would be able to make an actual living, and I think they felt comfortable sacrificing their one strange child.

He scores goals, assists, and he's got everything that you'd ask for in a striker. We, as African players, are all proud of what Didier achieved as a player. The way he holds himself is unbelievable.

As strong as we are, we have our moments. My mama is an African woman who had four kids and was a nurse for 25 years, and she had her moments. I've seen her cry.

Most Americans don't even understand what I'm saying in my records, but they pick up on the vibe, the vibration.