#Quotes : Chinua Achebe’s quotes



 “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.”

-Anthills of the Savannah


“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.”

- Things Fall Apart


“We cannot trample upon the
humanity of others without
devaluing our own. The Igbo,
always practical, put it
concretely in their proverb Onye
ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: “He who
will hold another down in the mud
must stay in the mud to keep him
down.”

-The Education of a British-
Protected Child: Essays


“Privilege, you see, is one of the
great adversaries of the
imagination; it spreads a thick
layer of adipose tissue over our
sensitivity.


-Hopes and Impediments:
Selected Essays


“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.”

-No Longer at Ease


“The price a world language must
be prepared to pay is submission
to many different kinds of use.
The African writer should aim to
use English in a way that brings
out his message best without
altering the language to the
extent that its value as a medium
of international exchange will be
lost. He should aim at fashioning
out an English which is at once
universal and able to carry his
peculiar experience.”

-Morning yet on creation day:
Essays


“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.”

-There Was A Country: A
Personal History of Biafra


“The triumph of the written word
is often attained when the writer
achieves union and trust with the
reader, who then becomes ready
to be drawn into unfamiliar
territory, walking in borrowed
literary shoes so to speak, toward
a deeper understanding of self or
society, or of foreign peoples,
cultures, and situations.”

-There Was A Country: A
Personal History of Biafra


“Every generation must recognize
and embrace the task it is
peculiarly designed by history and
by providence to perform.”

-There Was A Country: A
Personal History of Biafra


“There is a moral obligation, I
think, not to ally oneself with
power against the powerless.”

-There Was A Country: A
Personal History of Biafra


“What kind of power was it if
everybody knew that it would
never be used? Better to say that
it was not there, that it was no
more than the power in the anus
of the proud dog who tried to put
out a furnace with his puny fart….
He turned the yam with a stick.”

-Arrow of God


(culled from THE NATION)

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