CHINUA ACHEBE QUOTES IV

Nigerian writer (1930-2013)

Praise bounteous
providence if you will
that grants even an ogre
a tiny glow-worm
tenderness encapsulated
in icy caverns of cruel
heart or else despair
for in the very germ
of that kindred love is
lodged the perpetuity
of evil.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Attento, Soul Brother!

Tags: providence


The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Arrow of God

Tags: travel


Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest. That's not the way my people rear their children. They let them experience the world as it is.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 2, 2008

Tags: children, America


Now I think I know why gods
Are so partial to heights--to mountain
Tops and spires, to proud iroko trees
And thorn-guarded holy bombax,
Why petty household divinities
Will sooner perch on a rude board
Strung precariously from brittle rafters
Of a thatched roof
than sit squarely
On safe earth.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Collected Poems

Tags: God


I broke at last
the terror-fringed fascination
that bound my ancient gaze
to those crowding faces
of plunder and seized my
remnant life in a miracle
of decision between white
collar hands and shook it
like a cheap watch in
my ear and threw it down
beside me on the earth floor
and rose to my feet.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Attento, Soul Brother!


Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?

CHINUA ACHEBE

Arrow of God

Tags: instinct


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

interview, Afrique, 1962


Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.

CHINUA ACHEBE

No Longer at Ease

Tags: dancing


If I write novels in a country in which most citizens are illiterate, who then is my community?

CHINUA ACHEBE

Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays

Tags: writing


There are two streams in the minds of our people: one in which women are really oppressed and given very low status and one in which they are given very high honour, sometimes even greater honour than men, at least if not in fact, in language and metaphor.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Conversations with Chinua Achebe

Tags: women


If one finger brings oil it soils the others.

CHINUA ACHEBE

No Longer at Ease


Fortunately, in real life, we are not in danger of these bizarre extremes unless we consciously work our way into them. I can see no situation in which I will be presented with a Draconic choice between reading books and watching movies; or between English and Igbo. For me, no either/or; I insist on both. Which, you might say, makes my life rather difficult and even a little untidy. But I prefer it that way.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays


He who fights for a ne'er-do-well has nothing to show for it except a head covered in earth and grime.

CHINUA ACHEBE

No Longer at Ease


As a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Things Fall Apart

Tags: dance


Despite the daunting problems of identity that beset our contemporary society, we can see in the horizon the beginnings of a new relationship between artist and community which will not flourish like the mango-trick in the twinkling of an eye but will rather, in the hard and bitter manner of David Diop's young tree, grow patiently and obstinately to the ultimate victory of liberty and fruition.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays

Tags: artists


[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?

CHINUA ACHEBE

A Man of the People

Tags: fortune


The eye is not harmed by sleep.

CHINUA ACHEBE

No Longer at Ease


Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Arrow of God

Tags: music, dance


Clearly there is no moral obligation to write in any particular way. But there is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless. An artist, in my definition of the word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects.

CHINUA ACHEBE

There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Tags: writing, artists


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 deep 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.

CHINUA ACHEBE

There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Tags: writing, literature