Chinua Achebe Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache

  Chinua Achebe

  Lying, Thought Provoking, Lizards

  Chinua Achebe (2017). “The African Trilogy: Things Fall Apart; Arrow of God; No Longer at Ease”, p.226, Penguin

  12 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

• 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

  Memories, Survivor, Storyteller

  "Chinua Achebe and Nairobi Half Life" by Hayden Bixby, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 22, 2013.

  9 Copy quote

• A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.

  Chinua Achebe

  Disease, Herbs

  Chinua Achebe (1986). “Arrow of God”, p.133, Heinemann

  8 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

  26 Copy quote

• What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.

  Chinua Achebe

  Children, Book, Prose Poetry

  Chinua Achebe (2012). “There Was a Country: A Memoir”, p.44, Penguin

  31 Copy quote

• I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.

  Chinua Achebe

  Trying, Done, Goes On

  5 Copy quote

• No man however great is greater than his people

  Chinua Achebe

  Men, People, Thought Provoking

  18 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

• People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

  Chinua Achebe

  Writing, People, Stories

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Jul 27, 2011

  29 Copy quote

• Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit -- in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.

  Chinua Achebe

  Party, Champion, Church

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Jul 20, 2015

  17 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

• Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.

  Chinua Achebe

  Art, Reality, Men

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Apr 01, 2012

  30 Copy quote

• There is no story that is not true.

  Chinua Achebe

  Stories, Abomination, Things Fall Apart Important

  Chinua Achebe (1996). “Things Fall Apart”, p.99, Heinemann

  80 Copy quote

• Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.

  Chinua Achebe

  Mean, Ideas, Long

  Source: www.ehlingmedia.com

  45 Copy quote

• We live in a society that is in transition from oral to written. There are oral stories that are still there, not exactly in their full magnificence, but still strong in their differentness from written stories. Each mode has its ways and methods and rules. They can reinforce each other; this is the advantage my generation has - we can bring to the written story something of that energy of the story told by word of mouth.

  Chinua Achebe

  Strong, Energy, Transition

  30 Copy quote

• I think not just Nigeria but I think the whole of Africa has to turn back to the rural areas and that's where the majority of the citizens are and that's where the engine of of development has to be found.

  Chinua Achebe

  Thinking, Majority, Citizens

  Source: www.ehlingmedia.com

  23 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

• You must develop the habit of skepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch-doctors and professors.

  Chinua Achebe

  Witch Doctors, Pieces, Superstitions

  Chinua Achebe (1988). “Anthills of the Savannah”, Anchor

  10 Copy quote

• If you don't like someone's story, write your own. If you don't like what somebody says, say what it is you don't like.

  Chinua Achebe

  Writing, Stories, Write Your Own

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Kings, Children, Hands

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Jul 05, 2014

  8 Copy quote

• There must be areas in which a particular character does not represent you.

  Chinua Achebe

  Character, Doe, Particular

  5 Copy quote

• When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendered. And it was the women who led the first revolt.

  Chinua Achebe

  Men, Land, Battle

  31 Copy quote

• The reality of today, different as it is from the reality of my society one hundred years ago, is and can be important if we have the energy and the inclination to challenge it, to go out and engage with its peculiarities, with the things that we do not understand. The real danger is the tendency to retreat into the obvious, the tendency to be frightened by the richness of the world and to clutch what we always have understood.

  Chinua Achebe

  Real, Years, Challenges

  Chinua Achebe (2012). “There Was a Country: A Memoir”, p.50, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• My son even if you want to fall, at least fall where your bones can be gathered

  Chinua Achebe

  Fall, Son, Thought Provoking

  12 Copy quote

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