There needs to be something that matters to you, even if you’re inventing this impossible world filled with raffia babies. - Lesley Nneka Arimah

So it’s not motivation to continue, but reward for work already completed. That’s the most important thing to keep in mind, that the work comes first.

There is nothing inherently wrong with not knowing as much as people think you should or not knowing everything. There is no need to feel any sort of shame.

When I think of what literature can do, and I think of the ways that literature has changed minds and opened imaginations, I want to say that we African writers must centre the African gaze.