After a little while you became aware of how still it was out here. Now, looking back on my life in Africa, I feel like it might altogether be described as the existence of a person who had come from a rushed and noisy world, into a still country.

— Isak Dinesen

All roads lead to Johannesburg. If you are white or if you are black they lead to Johannesburg. If the crops fail, there is work in Johannesburg. If there are taxes to be paid, there is work in Johannesburg. If the farm is too small to be divided further, some must go to Johannesburg. If there is a child to be born that must be delivered in secret, it can be delivered in Johannesburg.

— Alan Paton

Almost astride the Equator, night fell like a portcullis. The sun dropped below the horizon and suddenly all was dark.

— Tim Butcher

Already this sun was pouring its wrath into the blue Indian Ocean where swordfish and marlin cruised like silver-blue attenuated warheads in their green-gold depths...

— Mike Bond

Although they probably know that some children were used and some children are used as miners, most adults are ignorant of the chocolate industry’s use of minors.

— Mokokoma Mokhonoana

America is a young dumb country, and it needs all kinds of help. America is a dumb puppy with big teeth that bite and hurt. And we take care of America. We hold America to our bosom; we feed America, we make love to America. There wouldn't be an America if it wasn't for black people. So you have some dedicated black Americans who will die a million deaths to save America. And this is home for us. We don't know really about Africa. We talk it in a romantic sense, but America is it. And so, America is always going to be okay as long as black people don't totally lose their mind, because we'll pick up the pieces and turn it into a new dance.

— Abiodun Oyewole

Americans made beautiful, principled speeches and imposed countless conditions on all manner of things. But in the end, in Africa they seemed to move the ball very slowly. They regarded Africa not as a terrain of opportunity, or even as a morally compelling challenge to humanity, but as a burden, and largely as one to be evaded as much as possible.

— Howard W. French

Americans of faith should try as hard to save the lives of African women as the lives of unborn fetuses.

— Nicholas D. Kristof

Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.

— Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

— Chinua Achebe