Chinua Achebe Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

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

  Chinua Achebe

  Thought Provoking

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Sep 29, 2015

  21 Copy quote

• A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.

  Chinua Achebe

  Mother, Children, Pay

  Chinua Achebe (1996). “Things Fall Apart”, p.117, Heinemann

  9 Copy quote

• The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.

  Chinua Achebe

  Tree, Lizards, Praise

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Nov 08, 2014

  20 Copy quote

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

  Chinua Achebe

  Reality, Men, Thought Provoking

  15 Copy quote

• A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.

  Chinua Achebe

  Business, Decay, Debt

  Chinua Achebe (1987). “No Longer at Ease”, p.74, Heinemann

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Chinua Achebe

  Real, Lying, Compassion

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Dec 17, 2011

  51 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, Men, Okonkwo

  Chinua Achebe (1996). “Things Fall Apart”, p.37, Heinemann

  18 Copy quote

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

  Chinua Achebe

  Brother, Thought Provoking, Fool

  Chinua Achebe (1986). “Arrow of God”, p.94, Heinemann

  5 Copy quote

• A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?

  Chinua Achebe

  Men, Doe, Lips

  Chinua Achebe (2012). “Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays”, p.118, Anchor

  7 Copy quote

• People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them. This is what people have come to expect. Its not viewed as a serious continent. Its a place of strange, bizarre and illogical things, where people dont do what common sense demands.

  Chinua Achebe

  People, Common Sense, Demand

  80 Copy quote

• Nobody can teach me who I am.

  Chinua Achebe

  Who I Am, Teach

  46 Copy quote

• There is that great proverb - that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It's not one man's job. It's not one person's job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail - the bravery, even, of the lions.

  Chinua Achebe

  Jobs, Men, Agony

  "Chinua Achebe, The Art of Fiction No. 139". Interview with Jerome Brooks, www.theparisreview.org. 1994.

  20 Copy quote

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

  Chinua Achebe

  Men, Thought Provoking, Down And

  Chinua Achebe (1986). “Arrow of God”, p.153, Heinemann

  5 Copy quote

• Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.

  Chinua Achebe

  Charity, Philanthropy, Opium

  37 Copy quote

• 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

  Moving, Giving, Black History

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Jan 17, 2017

  94 Copy quote

• 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

  Hands, Feet, Beads

  Chinua Achebe (1996). “Things Fall Apart”, p.84, Heinemann

  12 Copy quote

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

  Chinua Achebe

  Jumping, Toads, Daylight

  Chinua Achebe (1996). “Things Fall Apart”, p.143, Heinemann

  7 Copy quote

• The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.

  Chinua Achebe

  Baby, Children, Lying

  Chinua Achebe (2009). “Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

  32 Copy quote

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

  Chinua Achebe

  Giving, Creative, Suffering

  Chinua Achebe (1988). “A Man of the People”, p.104, Heinemann

  39 Copy quote

• Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.

  Chinua Achebe

  Reality, Giving, Literature

  Chinua Achebe (2012). “Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays”, p.215, Anchor

  25 Copy quote

• Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation.

  Chinua Achebe

  People, Stories, Might

  10 Copy quote

• No man however great is greater than his people

  Chinua Achebe

  Men, People, Thought Provoking

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, Wings, Kites

  Chinua Achebe (2009). “Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

  9 Copy quote

• Writing is like wrestling; you are wrestling with ideas and with the story. There is a lot of energy required. At the same time, it is exciting. So it is both difficult and easy. What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing. I have said in the kind of exaggerated manner of writers and prophets that writing, for me, is like receiving a term of imprisonment-you know that's what you're in for, for whatever time it takes.

  Chinua Achebe

  Writing, Wrestling, Difficult And Easy

  48 Copy quote

• Ogbuef Ezedudu,who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men when they came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan. "It has not always been so," he said. "My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. but after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the peace which it was meant to preserve.

  Chinua Achebe

  Father, Past, Men

  48 Copy quote

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