Ayi Kwei Armah Quotes

Yet she suspected that in its ten thousand disguises Cinque's Zombi corpse still ruled Africa; that those working to remember the dismembered continent were still fugitives in need of sanctuary from the storm troopers of destruction.

Words are mere wind, but wind too has always been part of our work, this work of sowers for the future, the work of story-tellers, the work of masters in the arts of eloquence.

To them that know their destination fatigue is a brief stranger merely passing in the glare of day.

I am saying this is seed time, far from harvest time.

Here, educated people use their intelligence to avoid risk, to accumulate power, money, privilege. We call it security. That makes our choices sound less cowardly, not so greedy

There would be no kings if some catastrophe brought all black people together. . . . And if we are such fools as to stand against the whites, they will grind us till we become less than impotent, less than grains of bad snuff tossing in a storm. That is the choice before every one of us. I myself, I have already chosen. And those who think like me have chosen. We shall be on the side of the whites. That is where the power lies. We have chosen power because we find impotence disgusting.

A people losing sight of origins are dead. A people deaf to purposes are lost. Under fertile rain, in scorching sunshine there is no difference: their bodies are mere corpses, awaiting final burial.

Of unconnected consciousness is there more to say beyond the clear recognition this is destruction's keenest tool against the soul?

Changes that seem reasonable, natural and basic," Armah says, "the academic world, far from performing as the rational part of a confused universe, seemed peculiarly denatured in its own right

Mmmm life has treated her well

The present is were we get lost -- if we forget our past and have no vision of the future.

Have you ever seen a big man without girls

He seemed to have no weight at all. There he was winning prizes, playing for the school team, starting a study group. Yet he drew no feeling of importance from anything he did. He floated

She spoke of those needing the white destroyers' shiny things to bring a feeling of worth into their lives, uttered their deep-rooted inferiority of soul, and called them lacking in the essence of humanity: womanhood in women, manhood in men. For which deficiency they must crave things to eke out their beings, things to fill holes in their spirits.

Isanusi sees Abena and, thinking she is alone, despairs. When the other 19 members of the community are revealed, Isanusi asks about Tawi and invites everyone to his small shelter. Isanusi asks them about their motivations for returning. They explain that they view their project as the “necessary work of preparation against destruction.