Chinua Achebe Quotes

If we have any role at all, I think it’s the role of optimism, not blind or stupid optimism, but the kind which is meaningful, one that is rather close to that notion of the world which is not perfect, but which can be improved. In other words, we don’t just sit and hope that things will work out; we have a role to play to make that come about.

It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme.

A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing

I do not see that it is necessary for any people to prove to another that they build cathedrals or pyramids before they can be entitled to peace and safety.

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.

As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look.

I feel that there has to be a purpose to what we do. If there was no hope at all, we should just sleep or drink and wait for death. But we don’t want to do that. And why? I think something tells us that we should struggle. We don’t really know why we should struggle, but we do, because we think it’s better than sitting down and waiting for calamity.

There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

My father used to say that it is the fear of causing offense that makes men swallow poison.

A snake was never called by its name at night, because it would hear. It was called a string.

The fly that no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave.

Our humanity is contingent on the humanity of our fellows. No person or group can be human alone. We rise above the animal together, or not at all. If we learned that lesson even this late in the day, we would have taken a truly millennial step forward.

Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.

Have you not heard that when two brothers fight a stranger reaps the harvest?

Looking at a king's mouth, ' said an old man, 'one would think he never sucked at his mother's breast.