Chinua Achebe Quotes

The total life of man is reflected in his art. And so when people come to us and say, "Why are you... you artist so political?" I don't know what they are talking about. Because art is political. And further more I'd say this, that those who tell you "Do not put too much politics in your art," are not being honest. If you look very carefully you will see that they are the same people who are quite happy with the situation as it is. And what they are saying is not don't introduce politics. What they are saying is don't upset the system. They are just as political as any of us. It's only that they are on the other side. Now in my enthusiasm, art cannot be on the side of the oppressor.

A certain enormous buck nigger encountered in Haiti fixed my conception of blind, furious, unreasoning rage, as manifested in the human animal to the end of my days.

We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet.

Conrad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation but was strangely unaware of the racism on which it sharpened its iron tooth.

The earth seemed unearthly.

It always surprised him, he went on to say, because he never had thought of Africa as having that kind of stuff, you know.

The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art.

A Conrad student informed me in Scotland that Africa is merely a setting for the disintegration of the mind of Mr. Kurtz. Which is partly the point. Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril.

In his mind, he could see the ravages of war: destruction, suffering, hunger, and the grotesque faces of men turned beasts by the bitterness of combat.

War is war. The strong will always crush the weak. The only difference is that in the process some have made a lot of money and others a lot of misery.

I don't believe anybody will be so unlike other people that they will be unhappy when their sons are engaged to marry.

We did not ask him for money yesterday; we shall not ask him tomorrow. But today is our day; we have climbed the iroko tree and would be foolish not to take down all the firewood we need.

They led and he followed blindly, his heavy chest heaving up and down in silent weeping ... it was the worst kind of madness, deep and tongue-tied.

Lame foot in the air.

He warns them not to become “disinherited”.