Quotes from Chinua Achebe

Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.

When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendered. And it was the women who led the first revolt.

I've had trouble now and again in Nigeria because I have spoken up about the mistreatment of factions in the country because of difference in religion. These are things we should put behind us.

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.

Presidents do not go off on leave without telling the country.

The relationship with my people, the Nigerian people, is very good. My relationship with the rulers has always been problematic.

It is difficult to express the reality of Ibo society in classical English.

I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.

Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest.

I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may be wrongheaded, but his heart was always on the right side. He wrote beautiful poetry.

They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.

In such a regime, I say, you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest-without asking to be paid.

Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.

Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.

Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest. That's not the way my people rear their children. They let them experience the world as it is.

What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing.

After a war life catches desperately at passing hints of normalcy like vines entwining a hollow twig.

What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.

The most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.

Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.

Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world.

People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.

I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.