Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Quotes

Your own actions are a better mirror of your life than the actions of all your enemies put together.

You two are wrong. A thief is no worse than a witch, and a witch is no worse than a thief. A thief is a witch, and a witch is a thief. For when a thief steals your land, your house, your clothes, isn't he really killing you? And when a witch destroys your life, isn't he stealing everything you own?"

It's terrible when the old have to bury the young. But it is more terrible when neither the old nor the young are there to bury each other.

Then change the world. Give it a soul.

As he watched her disappear, he felt proud that they should think well of him. He felt proud that he had a place in their esteem. And then came the pang. Father will know. They will know. He did not know what he feared most; the action his father would take when he found out, or the loss of the little faith the simple villagers had placed in him, when they knew. He feared to lose everything.

Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you. Value yourself and others will value you. Validation is best that comes from within.

Colonialism imposed its control of the social production of wealth through military conquest and subsequent political dictatorship. But its most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonised, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves and their relationship to the world. Economic and political control can never be complete or effective without mental control. To control a people's culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others.

Gikonyo greedily sucked sour pleasure from this reflection which he saw as a terrible revelation. To live and die alone is the ultimate truth.

Look, Sister,You know I want the boy to grow in the Lord.

The voice of the people is the voice of God.

Universities today, particularly in Africa, have become the modern patrons for the artist. Most African-writers are products of universities: indeed a good number of them still combine academic posts and writing. Also, a writer and a surgeon have something in common—a passion for truth. Prescription of the correct cure is dependent on a rigorous analysis of reality. Writers are surgeons of the heart and souls of a community.”

As long as he did not know the truth, he could interpret the story in the only way that gave him hope: the coming of black rule would not mean, could never mean the end of white power.

Our fathers fought bravely. But do you know the biggest weapon unleashed by the enemy against them? It was not the Maxim gun. It was division among them. Why? Because a people united in faith are stronger than the bomb.

In any case how many took the oath and are now licking the toes of the whiteman?No, you take an oath to confirm a choice already made. The decision to lay or not lay your life for the people lies in the heart. The oath is the water sprinkled on a man's head at baptism.

Why not marry her? She is beautiful! Why not marry? Do I love her or don't I?