Ngugi Wa Thiong'o Quotes

#1. This land used to yield. Rains used not to fail. What happened?' inquired Ruoro. It was Muturi who answered. 'You forget that in those days the land was not for buying. It was for use. It was also plenty, you need not have beaten one yard over and over again.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#2. Our people think: I , Wangari, a Kenyan by birth - how can I be a vagrant in my own country as if I were a foreigner.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#3. Prescription of the correct cure is dependent on a rigorous analysis of the reality.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#4. The dynamic inter-linkage of art forms in orature is thus seen as reflecting a Weltanschauung that assumes the normality of the connection between nature, nurture, supernatural, and supernurtural. I

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#5. For literature, all the world is a stage.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#6. Language, any language, has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#7. Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#8. If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can't buy it.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#9. Our fathers fought bravely. But do you know the biggest weapon unleashed by the enemy against them? It was not the Maxim gun. It was division among them. Why? Because a people united in faith are stronger than the bomb

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#10. Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#11. For I had reached a point in my life when I came to view words differently. A closer look at language could reveal the secret of life.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#12. Your own actions are a better mirror of your life than the actions of all your enemies put together.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#13. Written words can also sing.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#14. with me,it is 'better never than late

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#15. The condition of women in a nation is the real measure of its progress.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#16. Unshed tears of an unrequited desire for vengeance are exhausting and require privacy.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#17. That was one of the most rewarding things about spending nights in the open. Birds were bound to wake you up, and whether they carried good or bad luck, at least they woke you up with music.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#18. He carried the Bible; the soldier carried the gun; the administrator and the settler carried the coin. Christianity, Commerce, Civilization: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#19. If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe ... then let us leave the destiny of our countries to Europeans. They will know how to do it better than the most gifted among us.'25

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#20. Being is one thing; becoming aware of it is a point of arrival by an awakened consciousness and this involves a journey.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#21. A task is a burden only when it has not been tackled.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#22. Surely my mother could do anything to which she set her mind

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#23. In any case how many took the oath and are now licking the toes of the whiteman?No, you take an oath to confirm a choice already made. The decision to lay or not lay your life for the people lies in the heart. The oath is the water sprinkled on a man's head at baptism

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#24. There are some people, be they black or white, who don't want others to rise above them. They want to be the source of all knowledge and share it piecemeal to others less endowed. That is what's wrong with all these carpenters and men who have a certain knowledge. It is the same with rich people.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

#25. Stories, like food, lose their flavor if cooked in a hurry.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o