"The rest is silence."

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."

"Yukiko's diarrhoea persisted through the twenty-sixth, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo."

"In the spirit of the dead, the living, and the unborn, empty your ears of all impurities, o listener, that you may hear my story."

"There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it..."

"We should begin with the house, the house that made me."

"As I left China farther and farther behind, I looked out of the window and saw a great universe beyond the plane's silver wing."

"I say that Nhamo's grandmother was a witch because the people of the village said so. And she was."

"He is coming, and I am here."

"We didn't call it Lagos then. The name was Eko, a name that must have belonged to our ancestors.."

"This is not a full circle. It's Life carrying on. It's the next breath we all take. It's the choice we make to get on with it."

"Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room.."

"The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop."

"They called him Ma Ma Gombe, Ma Ma Water, out of respect and not mockery, because they were too wise to mock him."

"For a while longer they lie still. Then he whispers, 'Be good,' and then he whispers, 'Forgive me'."

"The news that our district was to be visited by a celebrated actor had spread throughout the mountain area of Phoenix of the Sky."

"We shall never cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started.."

"It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed."

"It's goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

"All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains."