Chinua Achebe Quotes

The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest.

While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.

When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.

[H]e developed a private philosophy of total self-reliance, an unyielding internal sufficiency that requires no external support from others.

The air, which had been stretched taut with excitement, relaxed again.

The relationship with my people, the Nigerian people, is very good. My relationship with the rulers has always been problematic.

You must develop the habit of skepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch-doctors and professors.

For whom is it well, for whom is it well.
There is no one for whom it is well.

the clock is ticking

Villages that their leaders came together to save themselves.

I don't care about age very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.

Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching.

He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.

Serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict.

We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.

A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride.

Fortunately, among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father.

Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.

There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.

...Nothing puzzles God

When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.

When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.

As a rule I don't like suffering to no purpose. Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely.

Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.

People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

If you don't like someone's story, write your own.

When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father's estate

What a man does not know is greater than he.

Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly for ever.

She pouted her lips like a gun in my face.

When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun.

A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle.

[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?

Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.

Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest.

Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.

If one finger brings oil it soils the others.

When a new saying gets to the land of empty men, they lose their heads over it.

Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache

A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing

Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.

Looking at a king's mouth, ' said an old man, 'one would think he never sucked at his mother's breast.

Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.

Each of my books is different. Deliberately ... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

A snake was never called by its name at night, because it would hear. It was called a string.

Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.

Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.

Stories are not always innocent; ... they can be used to put you in the wrong crowd, in the party of the man who has come to dispossess you.

My weapon is literature

Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten. Okoye

People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.

I don't care about age very much.

It is difficult to express the reality of Ibo society in classical English.

No man however great is greater than his people

A kinsman in trouble had to be saved, not blamed; anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.

A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.

Nigera is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.

That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.

Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.

You do not know me,' said Tortoise. 'I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.

No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.

A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.

Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.

There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.

The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.

A child cannot pay for its mother's milk.

Ghana and Nigeria resented each other and competed for supremacy in every sphere - politics, academia, sports, you name it.

An artist, in my understanding of the word, should side with the people against the Emperor that oppresses his or her people.

Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig.

As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.

A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.

If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.

The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.

He who brings kola brings life.

To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.

The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world.

anger against a kinsman was felt in the flesh, not in the marrow

The fly that no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave.

And so Mr. Brown came to be respected even by the clan, because he trod softly on its faith.

What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.

What is modesty but inverted pride?

I am against people reaping where they have not sown. But we have a saying that if you want to eat a toad you should look for a fat and juicy one.

What kind of power was it if it would never be used?

A chief does not hurry.

The writer cannot expect to be excused from the task of re-education and re-generation that must be done. In fact, he should march right in front.

Nobody can teach me who I am.

The emperor would prefer the poet to keep away from politics, the emperor's domain, so that he can manage things the way he likes.

Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?

In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint.

As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look.

The language of young men is pull down and destroy; but an old man speaks of conciliation.

A boy sent by his father to steal does not go stealthily but breaks the door with his feet.

A goat does not eat into a hen's stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.

After a war life catches desperately at passing hints of normalcy like vines entwining a hollow twig.

Women and music should not be dated.

When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.

Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He