Quotes from Chinua Achebe

Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?

Fortunately, in real life, we are not in danger of these bizarre extremes unless we consciously work our way into them. I can see no situation in which I will be presented with a Draconic choice between reading books and watching movies; or between English and Igbo. For me, no either/or; I insist on both. Which, you might say, makes my life rather difficult and even a little untidy. But I prefer it that way.

The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world.

Praise bounteous providence if you will that grants even an ogre a tiny glow-worm tenderness encapsulated in icy caverns of cruel heart or else despair for in the very germ of that kindred love is lodged the perpetuity of evil.

Come here into the hollow of my conscience I will show you a thing or two I will show you the heat of my love. You know what? I can give you babies too Real leaders of tomorrow Right here under the bridge I can give you real leaders of thought.

The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use.

Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.

But like all the other women I have referred to, she expressed herself with passionate and disarming effrontery.

You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree--the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.

Despite the daunting problems of identity that beset our contemporary society, we can see in the horizon the beginnings of a new relationship between artist and community which will not flourish like the mango-trick in the twinkling of an eye but will rather, in the hard and bitter manner of David Diop's young tree, grow patiently and obstinately to the ultimate victory of liberty and fruition.

I keep telling Chris that life is simpler that way. Much simpler. Stop looking back over your shoulder, I tell him. There ain't no deliverer running just a little behind schedule. March to the stake like a man and take the bullet in your chest. Much simpler.

The life of the imagination is a vital element of our total nature. If we starve it or pollute it the quality of our life is depressed or soiled.

A chief does not hurry.

An artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.

I don't think that elegant Miss Nigeria will have the imagination or the conscience to explore the possibilities of that encounter. She will dodge the rude beggar and speed away in her expensive car to a sterile assignation with her bloated Mr. Hoverhead Capital.

To the question of writing at all we have sometimes been counselled to forget it, or rather the writing of books. What is required, we are told, is plays and films. Books are out of date! The book is dead, long live television! One question which is not even raised let alone considered is: Who will write the drama and film scripts when the generation that can read and write has been used up?

What kind of power was it if it would never be used?

Where I come from in the Eastern Region, life is still -- well, things are changing very fast but if one is interested, one can still see signs of what life used to look like.

We know the breath-taking joy of his sisters when the word spread: He is risen! But a man who has lived a full life will have others to reckon with beside his sisters. Certainly that keen-eyed subordinate who has moved up to his table at the office, for him resurrection is an awful embarrassment.

The emperor would prefer the poet to keep away from politics, the emperor's domain, so that he can manage things the way he likes.

How many times now have I managed to read the Big Shot's mind better than all the courtiers? Who knows, I may soon be suspected of witchcraft or of having a secret hot-line to the palace! For it does not stand to reason that from my hermit's hut in the forest I should divine the thoughts of the Emperor better than the mesmerized toadies in daily attendance.

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

He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.