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When I'm back home, all I wear is African fabric. All I really rock is the traditional stuff.

All over Africa, people are wearing what Americans once wore and no longer want. Visit the continent, and you'll find faded remnants of secondhand clothing in the strangest of places.

I am an African and I am very proud of that.

I am not an African. I am an American.

I am proud to be an African.

I am a black man inside and outside and you are white men on the outside, but inside, you are Africans like me.

I wanted to wash off the experience of Africa but obviously I couldn't because that's who I was.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel prize.

What I generally get from being in Africa is a sense of warmth and openness. As a stranger, you are always welcomed into people's homes and people are always offering you food. That generosity is incredibly touching.

Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.