Ama Ata Aidoo

Politicians are easy to attack, but frankly, we are all guilty of not meeting the needs of Africa's young people properly.

It's a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism. It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.

Africa is not fulfilling people's hopes and aspirations. African leaders have not had an agenda that included governing Africa so that people would find their careers, their life, dreams and visions fulfilled here.

At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.

Because I am an African, I am a Ghanaian.

People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics.

The best way to sharpen a knife is not to whet one side of it only. And neither can you solve a riddle by considering only one end of it.

They had always told me that I wrote like a man.