The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.
CHINUA ACHEBEIf you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
-
-
It has always been quite apparent to me that no important story can fail to tell us something of value to us.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft, not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too – If one says no to the other, let his wing break.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Every generation must find its mission and fulfill it, as Fanon said – or betray it. So it is not something that you can write up on the wall, saying this is what has to be done. Every generation has to discover what it needs to do.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
What a man does not know is greater than he.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
And theories are no more than fictions which help us to make sense of experience and which are subject to disconfirmation when their explanations are no longer adequate.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
There is no story that is not true.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own. If you don’t like what somebody says, say what it is you don’t like.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens – whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am – and what I need – is something I have to find out myself.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
CHINUA ACHEBE