Binyavanga Wainaina

“When I went to live in South Africa, I immediately began to understand what went wrong. Because here was a place supposed to be under apartheid - I arrived there in 1991 - but here a black person had more say and had more influence over his white government than an average Kenyan had over the Moi government.”

“It's like I was always not quite sure even how to move in space somehow; I would watch people and then copy them. I found it really hard to walk straight. My brother was always on at me for walking off the pavement. I guess I always expected people to bring me back into line.”

“I want to be fighting for a society accountable towards its citizens.”

“People reach an age... where somebody else's platform is no longer yours.”

“There's no point for me in being a writer and having all these blocked places where I feel I can't think freely and imagine freely. There just really is no point.”

“All people have dignity. There's nobody who was born without a soul and a spirit.”

“Every human being has a bit of gangster in him.”