Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Quotes

Our people, think: I, Wangarĩ, a Kenyan by birth—how can I be a vagrant in my own country as if I were a foreigner?"

To the Kareendis of modern Kenya, isn't each day exactly the same as all the others? For the day on which they are born is the very day on which every part of their body is buried except one—they are left with a single organ. So when will the Kareendis of modern Kenya wipe the tears from their faces? When will they ever discover laughter?"

Therefore there are two hearts: the heart built by the clan of parasites, the evil heart; and the heart built by the clan of producers, the good heart."

Who has told you that prophesy is yours alone, to keep to yourself? Why are you furnishing yourself with empty excuses? If you do that, you will never be free of tears and pleading cries."

The voice of the people is the voice of God.

Different! Different! Puu! They are all alike. Those coated with the white clay of the white man’s ways are the worst. They have nothing inside.

Stay well, Son. Go well and in peace, Mother.

Look, Sister,You know I want the boy to grow in the Lord.

Well – yes – no. I mean, nowhere in particular.

Soon everyone will know that he has created and then killed.

Why not marry her? She is beautiful! Why not marry? Do I love her or don't I?

Then the white men had come, preaching a strange religion, strange ways, which all men followed. The tribe's code of behaviour was broken.

As he watched her disappear, he felt proud that they should think well of him. He felt proud that he had a place in their esteem. And then came the pang. Father will know. They will know. He did not know what he feared most; the action his father would take when he found out, or the loss of the little faith the simple villagers had placed in him, when they knew. He feared to lose everything.

Really, women could never understand. Women were women, whether saved or not. Their son had to be protected against all evil influences. He must be made to grow in the footsteps of the Lord. He looked at her, frowning a little. She had made him sin but that had been a long time ago. And he had been saved. John must not tread the same road.

Koina talked of seeing the ghosts of the colonial past still haunting Independent Kenya. And it was true that those now marching in the streets of Nairobi were not the soldiers of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army but of the King’s African Rifles, the very colonial forces who had been doing on the battlefield what Jackson was doing in churches.