Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Stories, like food, lose their flavor if cooked in a hurry.

for I had reached a point in my life when I came to view words differently. A closer look at language could reveal the secret of life.

There is no difference between old and modern stories. Stories are stories. All stories are old. All stories are new. All stories belong to tomorrow. And stories are not about ogres or about animals or about men. All stories are about human beings."

That was one of the most rewarding things about spending nights in the open. Birds were bound to wake you up, and whether they carried good or bad luck, at least they woke you up with music.

It's terrible when the old have to bury the young. But it is more terrible when neither the old nor the young are there to bury each other.

Gatuĩria was at least aware that the slavery of language is the slavery of the mind and nothing to be proud of."

He was caught red-handed,’ some were saying.

‘Imagine, bullets in his hands. In broad daylight.’

Everybody, even we children, knew that for an African to be caught with bullets or empty shells was treason; he would be dubbed a terrorist, and his hanging by the rope was the only outcome.

‘We could hear gunfire,’ some were saying.

‘I saw them shoot at him with my own eyes.’

‘But he didn’t die!’

‘Die? Hmm! Bullets flew at those who were shooting.’

‘No, he flew into the sky and disappeared into the clouds.’”

Written words can also sing.

But, somehow, in time, I began to connect a few threads, and things became clearer as if I was emerging from a mist. I learned that our land was not quite our land; that our compound was part of a property owned by an African landlord, Lord Reverend Stanley Kahahu, or Bwana Stanley, as we called him; that we were now the ahoi, tenants at will. How did we come to be ahoi on our own land? Had we lost our traditional land to Europeans? The mist had not cleared entirely.

I am human, i am a human being, a soul, and not a piece of garbage, no matter how poor and ragged I look, and I deserve respect, he heard himself say, time and again as he descended to and repossessed his body."

What is a blood relation? [...] What does it matter if people are alike or not? A child is a child. We all come from the same womb, the common womb one Kenya. The blood shed for our freedom has washed away the differences between that clan and this one, this nationality and that one. Today there is no Luo, Gĩkũyũ, Kamba, Giriama, Luhya, Maasai, Meru, Kallenjin or Turkana. We are all children of one another. Our mother is Kenya, the mother of all Kenyan people."

I believe that black has been oppressed by white; female by male; peasant by landlord; and worker by lord of capital. It follows from this that the black female worker and peasant is the most oppressed. She is oppressed on account of her color like all black people in the world; she is oppressed on account of her gender like all women in the world; and she is exploited and oppressed on account of her class like all workers and peasants in the world. Three burdens she has to carry.