Chinua Achebe Quotes

Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying...

The foreign correspondent is frequently the only means of getting an important story told, or of dra...

The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place...

The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The...

In the end I began to understand. There is such a thing as absolute power over narrative. Those who ...

Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.

I don't care about age very much.

But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic id...

Let no one be fooled by the fact that we may write in English, for we intend to do unheard of things...

It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child wash...

I do not know how to thank you.''I can tell you,' said Obierika. 'Kill one of your sons for me.''Tha...

When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth

A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food...

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with w...

Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some...

There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one...

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

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

Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not d...

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

When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk

Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by pro...

...she was sensitive enough and intelligent enough to understand, and her literary education could n...

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

Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the rig...

In such a regime, I say you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and ...

In such a regime, I say you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and ...

A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.

I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door w...

My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; m...

I feel that there has to be a purpose to what we do. If there was no hope at all, we should just sle...

Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensiv...

The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the ...

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

The people you see in Nigeria today have always lived as neighbors in the same space for as long as ...

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

People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them ...

In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a w...

I don't care about age very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and t...

The relationship with my people, the Nigerian people, is very good. My relationship with the rulers ...

I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas ...

A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educ...

If we have any role at all, I think it’s the role of optimism, not blind or stupid optimism, but the...

A child cannot pay for its mother's milk