"The population of Africa was a gigantic, matted, crisscrossing web, spanning the entire continent and in constant motion, endlessly undulating, bunching up in one place and spreading out in another, a rich fabric, a colorful array."
"More than anything, one is struck by the light. Light everywhere. Brightness everywhere. Everywhere, the sun...from the morning's earliest moments, the airport is ablaze with sunlight, all of us in sunlight."
"The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa.' In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist."
