Chinua Achebe Quotes

A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?

When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.

Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.

If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.

Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.

An angry man is always a stupid man.

There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it’s far removed from your situation.

When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.

A goat does not eat into a hen’s stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.