When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool. - Chinua Achebe

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

The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors. There was coming and going between them, especially at festivals and also when an old man died, because an old man was very close to the ancestors. A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.

Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.