Top 982 Quotes & Sayings by Nigerian Authors - Page 3

There's a Yoruba proverb which roughly translates into, 'What turns its face to one person has turned its back on the other.' It's always made me think about how deeply subjective our experience of the world can be.

When you play arenas you can create whatever you want. At a theater the height of the stage and the limitations of the theater can make you feel more separate from the audience.

I don't think about race before I start drawing. I think about how to make that mark to fit whatever purpose I need it to fulfill.

There has always been a strange dissonance between the public and the private in Nigeria.

What the oil producer gets paid is about 16 percent. The majority of it is tax, which in fairness to the government of this country they have accepted and admitted.

Unless life is one giant rap battle, you don't need to freestyle your way to success.

When I was in Paris I was at a big club in a major city, but nobody really cared about each other. It didn't have that family feeling, I didn't see any team spirit.

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. We had a bit of a rollercoaster life with some really challenging financial periods. He was always unshaken, completely tranquil, the same ebullient, laughing, jovial man.

The labs were happy that I was brave enough to attempt to program it and the $5 million computer was left entirely to my use. I was their human guinea pig.

I tend to explain my songs.

This whole thing with Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas happened during my first year of college. It was a cross-section of race and politics and gender that I feel is still going on today.

I see the world as a magical place. Therefore, it was only natural that magic wafted from my fiction like smoke.

Like most writers, I find the Web is a wonderful distraction. Who doesn't need that last minute research before writing?

What you wish to others, God wishes to you.

Every first draft sucks, so when you have your favorite novel, and you're like, 'Wow, this is a masterpiece,' and then you write your first draft, and you're like, 'This is really bad,' and then you're like 'I can't do this because this is nowhere close.' When, in reality, the book you loved so much started out just as crappy.

As an African, there are certain professions your family want you to do or are willing to sign off. Being in the medical professional, as a doctor, pharmacist, a nurse, or being an engineer - those are the only professions allowed!

If bad and inexperienced politicians control power in Nigeria, my wealth may turn into poverty, and I am not ready to become a poor man.

I can play on the right, from the left, behind the main striker, or upfront - it depends on where the coach wants me to play.

When I was 14, I started playing for Taye Academy in the city of Owerri, and then my whole life became football. I dreamed of playing for certain clubs, or going places I'd never been before, but I just kept my ambitions to myself because I never really expected that I could get to these places.

I think any time you get a boost of confidence, it fuels you to do more, and that kept happening for me.

I've trained my whole life to be a winner and if I know two things it's that to be the best takes passion and persistence.

No matter how much you pray or fast, our country cannot grow without some of us deciding to do the hard work that makes nations work.

I actually sewed my own wedding dress and I sewed my flower girl dresses.

I have expertise in five different fields which helps me to easily understand the analogy between my scientific problems and those occurring in nature.

There is a strong view in Nigeria, as in many other cultures, that a marriage is not complete without children. I don't agree; I'm wary of the idea that people have to have some particular functionality in order to be full members of society.

I don't learn as well, I think, in like a structured way. I kind of have to be thrown into it.

Remember, life itself is a mission. While we are on the go, we need to stop between steps to re-focus on the Word and the Will of God. While we are on the go, I mean, while we are on the mission, we need to sometimes stop at intervals to assess our progress and prepare ourselves for the challenges ahead.

Anybody in that welterweight division that think they want this, you know you don't, because I'm a problem. I'm a problem in this division.

Except for the grace of God, I would be nobody - and that grace is the opposite of merit - human labour, education or human wisdom.

People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.

As human beings, of course, we're all compromised and complex and contradictory and if a screenplay can express those contradictions within a character and if there's room for me to express them, that's a part I'd love to play, so much more than a character who is heroic and one-dimensional.

I'm not shy or reclusive. I just spend my time with people rather than journalists.

I told as much of my life as I could to encourage people: to encourage others to get to where they should be, where they want to be.

First, I identify an analogous problem in nature and borrow from it.

I was growing up in England and England was the only national team I knew, so I was actually very pleased to play at the national level.

For what we do training, as a fighter, you have to be able to flip that switch where you turn into that savage, that guy that's prepared to go to war.

Sticking with your craft goes a long way in ensuring that you'll be successful.

Corruption, the greatest single bane of our society today.

Children of color need a mirror to see themselves in. And then people who don't have that experience, they need a window. They need a really personalized way to see what people who are different from them are going through.

I don't suffer from SCD myself, but I do carry the gene. This means that if I married another person who carried the gene, there would be a danger our children would suffer from the disease.

And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.

When I was in school, I conceptually didn't want black people to have context, to take it out of all that history. I wanted nothing to indicate where they are or what time it is, to place them anywhere.

One's own self-worth is tied to the worth of the community to which one belongs, which is intimately connected to humanity in general. What happens in Darfur becomes an assault on my own community, and on me as an individual. That's what the human family is all about.

I'm not the ugliest guy in the world.

Education from six-year-old to 14 is compulsory in Nigeria, but the simple fact is that a lack of resources, coupled with peoples' inability to afford books and uniforms mean the reality for millions of Nigerian children is a life without education.

Growing up I've been playing as an attacking midfielder, more central in the midfield. I wouldn't say if I'm most comfortable there but that's where I grew up playing.

As long as we can establish the bona fides of the leadership of Boko Haram, we are prepared as a government to discuss with them how to get the girls back. But we have not established any evidence of a credible leadership.

I am a firm believer that the craziest stories that have been told and are being told are in anime. They have character arcs that go over, like, 400 episodes, like a 400-episode character arc.

My mother has a lot of sisters. They had very, very interesting conversations. Because I was a quiet child, I would sit in the room and listen to these stories. I think I developed a curiosity about the life of other people from that, and an interest in looking at what was lying beneath the layer of what people present in public.

The hardship of living in a refugee camp made me psychologically strong.

I was never a big spender.

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.

Living in Germany Africanised me.

I would say each day I'm still growing and still learning, but negatives, obviously they're always going to criticise me for my goals and assists, which I need to add to my game if I want to be compared with the people I'm playing with.

What I always say is that money doesn't have colour. It doesn't matter whether you are from Africa or anywhere in the world. The colour of money is the same.

A tiger does not shout its tigritude, it acts.

Gender is not an easy conversation to have. It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable.

A talented footballer comes over, his family depends on him, and if his agent or club don't treat him well, he might not succeed, and then he feels he's let everyone down. For years, African players have been exploited.

I grew up in a place called Port Harcourt, Nigeria, the youngest of four. What I remember most about Nigeria was the ease. I would play by the pool, have fun with friends.

As a footballer, if you work hard, then everything else falls into place.