We are interested only in people who steal because their bellies are full

The master of ceremonies leaped on to the platform and called for silence. He addressed the audience and told them this was a competition for thieves and robbers, real ones - that is, those who had reached international standards. Stories of people braking padlocks in village huts or snatching purses from poor market women were shameful in the eyes of real experts in theft and robbery, and more so when such stories were narrated in front of international thieves and robbers. The foreigners had not travelled all this way to meet people who stole just because they were hungry or needed clothes and jobs. Such petty thieves and robbers were criminals. "Here, in this cave, we are interested only in people who steal because their bellies are full," the master of ceremonies said, patting his stomach.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Devil on the cross (1980. English version 1982), 103