"This neglect of a very important Brazilian writer is, in my view, the result of Brazil's relative isolation from what metropolitan tastemakers. If João Gilberto Noll were writing in French or German or even Russian, it's likely he'd be more broadly translated."

“I love whenever they downgrade a hurricane to a tropical depression, because I always think of a tropical depression as how I feel three songs into a Jimmy Buffett concert.”

“I am more weary of life, I think, than ever I was.”

“Gardening is akin to writing stories. No experience could have taught me more about grief or flowers, about achieving survival by going, your fingers in the ground, the limit of physical exhaustion.”

“Unfortunately, the true force which propels our endless political disputes, our constant struggles for political advantage, is often not our burning concern for democracy, it is often of our dedication to the principle of the rule of law.”

Source : Olusegun Obasanjo, Ad' Obe Obe (2004). “A new dawn: a collection of speeches of President Olusegun Obasanjo”, Spectrum Books Ltd

“I think that literature quite often emerges from areas where there has been a lack of articulation, like women's writing.”

Source : "The SRB Interview: Edna and Michael Longley". SRB interview, www.scottishreviewofbooks.org. October 19, 2009.

“An artistic endeavour comes into the world naked, unnamed, and vulnerable. Every creative effort requires the artist to wrest something from nothingness, a purposive cosmos from an apparently indifferent chaos.”

“Men are apt to idolize or fear that which they cannot understand, especially if it be a woman.”

“This is our high calling, to represent Christ, and act in His behalf, and in His character and spirit, under all circumstances and toward all men.”