“I did try to write fiction. I wrote 10 novels. And they were all just ...” — Alexandra Fuller Quote

“I did try to write fiction. I wrote 10 novels. And they were all just awful.”

“For me, writing is really an agony. I feel as if I have a huge, luminous idea that has the potential to be really profound, and then when I set it down on paper, I find the power of the idea has been hugely weakened in the process of transmission.”

“One of the things about being raised British in Africa is that you get this double whammy of toughness. The continent in place itself made you quite tough. And then you've got this British mother whose entire being rejects 'coddling' in case it makes you too soft. So there's absolutely nothing standing between you and a fairly rough experience.”

“If you look around us, there are an awful lot of men out there, and women, but mostly men, who believe that they have got a fast-track path to Heaven, if they do the things that they believe God is telling them to do, and I don't just mean Islamic people. I mean Fundamentalist Christians.”

“I actually found contracting malaria in the Congo fascinating. Observing your body under attack from this microorganism and seeing how it responds is simultaneously fascinating and awful but maybe that's just because I'm a former biology teacher.”