Top 48 Achebe Things Quotes
#1. Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching.
Chinua Achebe
#2. Because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye ... I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#3. 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
#4. 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
#5. Each of my books is different. Deliberately ... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
Chinua Achebe
#6. If I hold her hand she says, 'Don't touch!'
If I hold her foot she says 'Don't touch!'
But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.
Chinua Achebe
#7. The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
Chinua Achebe
#8. 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.
Chinua Achebe
#9. When we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
Chinua Achebe
#10. No man however great is greater than his people
Chinua Achebe
#11. The sun will shine on those who stand, before it shines on those who kneel under them.
Chinua Achebe
#12. In such a regime, I say, you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest-without asking to be paid.
Chinua Achebe
#13. 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
#15. You must develop the habit of skepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch-doctors and professors.
Chinua Achebe
#16. Who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted [Nwoye's] young soul
the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul.
Chinua Achebe
#17. Africa is people may seem too simple and too obvious to some of us. But I have found in the course of my travels through the world that the most simple things can still givwe us a lot of trouble, even the brightest among us: this is particularly so in matters concerning Africa.
Chinua Achebe
#18. He saw himself and his fathers crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and finding nothing but ashes of bygone days..
Chinua Achebe
#19. 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.
Chinua Achebe
#20. Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.
Chinua Achebe
#21. I have so many ideas; there are so many things that need to be done, so many possibilities, you know; one is terribly excited, but at the same time, you're almost confused, because you don't know where to begin.
Chinua Achebe
#22. This is not pessimism but rather casting a cold eye on things. It is only one man's story, and I think that things will go better, but difficulties exist and nothing is served by hiding them under a poetic veil or under a lyricism of the past. I am against slogans.
Chinua Achebe
#23. The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.
Chinua Achebe
#24. Do not despair. I know you will not despair. You have a manly and a proud heart. A proud heart can survive a 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
#25. 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.
Chinua Achebe
#27. I've had trouble now and again in Nigeria because I have spoken up about the mistreatment of factions in the country because of difference in religion. These are things we should put behind us.
Chinua Achebe
#28. Travellers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves
Chinua Achebe
#29. A goat does not eat into a hen's stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.
Chinua Achebe
#30. A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
Chinua Achebe
#32. My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don't see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity.
Chinua Achebe
#33. I think writers are not only writers, they are also citizens.
Chinua Achebe
#34. I do not know how to thank you.'
'I can tell you,' said Obierika. 'Kill one of your sons for me.'
'That will not be enough,' said Okonkwo.
'Then kill yourself,' said Obierika.
Chinua Achebe
#35. What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
Chinua Achebe
#36. A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness
Chinua Achebe
#38. At the end of the thirty-month war Biafra was a vast smoldering rubble. The head count at the end of the war was perhaps three million dead, which was approximately 20 percent of the entire population.
Chinua Achebe
#39. In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.
Chinua Achebe
#40. A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?
Chinua Achebe
#41. When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.
Chinua Achebe
#43. Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.
Chinua Achebe
#44. [Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?
Chinua Achebe
#45. A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.
Chinua Achebe
#46. Paradoxically, a saint like [Albert] Schweitzer can give one a lot more trouble than King Leopold II, villain of unmitigated guilt, because along with doing good and saving African lives Schweitzer also managed to announce that the African was indeed his brother, but only his junior brother.
Chinua Achebe
#48. Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten. Okoye
Chinua Achebe
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