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Chinua Achebe

138 quotes

“The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Arrow of God (1988)
“For an African writing in English is not without its serious setbacks. He often finds himself describing situations or modes of thought which have no direct equivalent in the English way of life. Caught in that situation he can do one of two things. He can try and contain what he wants to say within the limits of conventional English or he can try to push back those limits to accommodate his ideas … I submit that those who can do the work of extending the frontiers of English so as to accommodate African thought-patterns must do it through their mastery of English and not out of innocence.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Kalu Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart (1999), Greenwood Press, .
“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have – otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“found a girl who will suit [him] admirably”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“it is impossible for [him] to marry Nweke’s daughter”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“deeply affected by his father’s grief”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the first rain in the year”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“calls for medicine”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“that women supply with success to recapture their husbands’ straying affection”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“obstinately ahead of his more superstitious neighbors in these matters”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city it had always seemed to her something of a joke that a person’s tribe could determine who he married.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘I can’t—we must—I mean it is impossible for me to marry Nweke’s daughter.’ ‘Impossible. Why?’ asked his father. ‘I don’t love her.’ ‘Nobody said you did. Why should you?’”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What one looks for in a wife are a good character and a Christian background.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes. They are most unhappy if the engagement is not arranged by them. In our case it’s worse—you are not even an Ibo.This was said so seriously and so bluntly that Nene could not find speech immediately. In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city it had always seemed to her something of a joke that a person’s tribe could determine whom he married.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As Nnaemeka walked home that evening he turned over in his mind the different ways of overcoming his father’s opposition, especially now that he had gone and found a girl for him. He had thought of showing his letter to Nene but decided on second thoughts not to, at least for the moment.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t love her."“Nobody said you did. Why should you?” he asked.“Marriage today is different…”“Look here, my son,” interrupted his father, “nothing is different. What one looks for in a wife are a good character and a Christian background.”Nnaemeka saw there was no hope along the present line of argument.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nene Atang from Calabar. She is the only girl I can marry.” This was a very rash reply and Nnaemeka expected the storm to burst. But it did not. His father merely walked away into his room. This was most unexpected and perplexed Nnaemeka. His father’s silence was infinitely more menacing than a flood of threatening speech. That night the old man did not eat.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nnaemeka, for his own part, was very deeply affected by his father’s grief. But he kept hoping that it would pass away. If it had occurred to him that never in the history of his people had a man married a woman who spoke a different tongue, he might have been less optimistic.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The story eventually got to the little village in the heart of the Ibo country that Nnaemeka and his young wife were a most happy couple. But his father was one of the few people who knew nothing about this. He always displayed so much temper whenever his son’s name was mentioned that everyone avoided it in his presence. By a tremendous effort of will he had succeeded in pushing his son to the back of his mind. The strain had nearly killed him but he had persevered, and won.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Okeke was trying hard not to think of his two grandsons. But he knew he was now fighting a losing battle. He tried to hum a favourite hymn but the pattering of large rain drops on the roof broke up the tune. His mind immediately returned to the children. How could he shut his door against them? By a curious mental process he imagined them standing, sad and forsaken, under the harsh angry weather—shut out from his house. That night he hardly slept, from remorse—and a vague fear that he might die without making it up to them.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the egret perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A proud heart can survive general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly, so his chi agreed. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But he was not the man to go about telling his neighbors that he was in error. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the clan. His enemies said that his good fortune had gone to his head.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even the village rain-maker no longer claimed to be able to intervene. He could not stop the rain now, just as he would not attempt to start it in the heart of the dry season, without serious danger to his own health.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When did you become a shivering old woman," Okonkwo asked himself, "you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You sound as if you question the authority and the decision of the Oracle, who said he should die." "I do not. Why should I? But the Oracle did not ask me to carry out its decision." [...] "The Earth cannot punish me for obeying her mesenger," Okonkwo said. "A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After such treatment it would think twice before coming again, unless it was one of the stubborn ones who returned, carrying the stamp of their mutilation--a missing finger or perhaps a dark line where the medicine man's razor had cut them.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And when, as on that day, nine of the greatest masked spirits in the clan came out together it was a terrifying spectacle. Okonkwo's wives, and perhaps other women as well, might have noticed that the second egwugwu had the springy walk of Okonkwo. And they might also have noticed that Okonkwo was not among the titled men and elders who sat behind the row of egwugwu. But if they thought these things they kept them to themselves. The egwugwu with the springy walk was one of the dead fathers of the clan.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beware Okonkwo!" she warned. "Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors. There was coming and going between them, especially at festivals and also when an old man died, because an old man was very close to the ancestors. A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth, like learning to become left-handed in old age.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have heard stories about white men who make the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true." [said Obierika] "There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, called the converts the excrement of the clan, and the new faith was a mad dog that had come to eat it up.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death. Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory." [...] They offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take. And to their great amazement the missionaries thanked them and burst into song.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Okonkwo was popularly called the "Roaring Flame." As he looked into the log fire he recalled the name. He was a flaming fire. How then could he have begotten a son like Nwoye, degenerate and effeminate? [...] He sighed heavily, and as if in sympathy the smoldering log also sighed. And immediately Okonkwo's eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source