The Igbo Used To Say That They

Much Of The Image Of The Amazingness Of America Comes From The Movies Into Other Cultures. And It's Much The Same Thing When You Reverse It. Much Of Africa Is Presented Through Poverty, Through Drought And War. [but] You're Not Presenting People, You're Not Presenting Countries, You're Not Presenting Complexity, And So People Can't Care About An Amorphous Mass Called Africa.

Elvis, Stop Dat! You Know It Is Taboo To Whistle At Night. You Will Attract A Spirit.

I Have Not Spoken In Three Years: Not Since I Left Boot Camp. It Has Been Three Years Of A Senseless War, And Though The Reasons For It Are Clear, And Though We Will Continue To Fight Until We Are Ordered To Stop--and Probably For A While After That--none Of Us Can Remember The Hate That Led Us Here. We Are Simply Fighting To Survive The War. It Is A Strange Place To Be At Fifteen, Bereft Of Hope And Very Nearly Of Your Humanity. But That Is Where I Am Nonetheless.

All My Characters Exist In Risk, In The Places We Are Either Too Afraid To Go To, Or Have Enough Privilege Not To Have To, But Whatever The Reason, These Characters I Fashion Go Before Us And Come Back Transformed For Us. For Me, At Least.

Men Do Communicate, Often Very Directly, But Women Sometimes Cannot Accept How Simple What We Have To Say Is. We Seldom Play Games--we Aren't That Sophisticated.