Kamene

“Nothing forces us to know
What we do not want to know
Except pain”
― Aeschylus, The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides

“In this country [England], writers write to entertain, they raise questions of individual existence...but for a Nigerian writer in my position you can't go into that. Literature has to be combative. You cannot have art for art's sake. This art must do something to transform the lives of a community, of a nation. And for that reason, literature has a different purpose altogether in that sort of society...The stories that I tell must have a different sort of purpose from the artist in the Western world...and art, in that instance, becomes so meaningful both to the artist and to the consumers of that art, because you do not just depend on them to read your books, you even have to live a life that they can emulate.”
― Ken Saro-Wiwa

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire