People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them.
Interpretation
People often overlook the reality before them due to preconceived notions.
This quote emphasizes the idea that individuals often let their biases and preconceived beliefs cloud their perception of reality. When people approach new experiences or places, such as Africa, with fixed ideas about what they expect to find, they may miss the genuine truths and beauty that exist. This serves as a reminder to remain open-minded and receptive to new experiences, rather than only seeking validation for existing beliefs.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about cultural understanding and biases.
In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.
Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life - to drive the crowd away from His church.
It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.
An angry man is always a stupid man.
Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.
Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary.
He that hath the steerage of my course, Direct my sail.
You cannot attain to charity except through humility.
We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.
A prediction, in a field where prediction is not possible, is no more than a prejudice.
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