Top 200 Chinua Achebe Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Even the village rain-maker no longer claimed to be able to intervene. He could not stop the rain now, just as he would not attempt to start it in the heart of the dry season, without serious danger to his own health.”

— Chinua Achebe

52. “You must develop the habit of skepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch-doctors and professors.”

— Chinua Achebe

53. “A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing.”

— Chinua Achebe

54. “A kinsman in trouble had to be saved, not blamed; anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.”

— Chinua Achebe

55. “A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness.”

— Chinua Achebe

56. “A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle.”

— Chinua Achebe

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

— Chinua Achebe

58. “A boy sent by his father to steal does not go stealthily but breaks the door with his feet.”

— Chinua Achebe

59. “He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

— Chinua Achebe

60. “Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.”

— Chinua Achebe

61. “Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don’t then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.”

— Chinua Achebe

62. “If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’ If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’ But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.”

— Chinua Achebe

63. “A fox must be chased away first; after that the hen might be warned against wandering into the bush.”

— Chinua Achebe

64. “It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme.”

— Chinua Achebe

65. “Those whose kernels were cracked by benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble.”

— Chinua Achebe

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

— Chinua Achebe

67. “Women and music should not be dated.”

— Chinua Achebe

68. “Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.”

— Chinua Achebe

69. “Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?”

— Chinua Achebe

70. “Nobody can teach me who I am.”

— Chinua Achebe

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

— Chinua Achebe

72. “She pouted her lips like a gun in my face.”

— Chinua Achebe

73. “He who brings kola brings life.”

— Chinua Achebe

74. “Have you not heard that when two brothers fight a stranger reaps the harvest?”

— Chinua Achebe

75. “A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.”

— Chinua Achebe

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

— Chinua Achebe

77. “A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.”

— Chinua Achebe

78. “When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.”

— Chinua Achebe

79. “Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked.”

— Chinua Achebe

80. “A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.”

— Chinua Achebe

81. “A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.”

— Chinua Achebe

82. “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.”

— Chinua Achebe

83. “In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn’t perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.”

— Chinua Achebe

84. “We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: ‘He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.’”

— Chinua Achebe

85. “Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.”

— Chinua Achebe

86. “It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.”

— Chinua Achebe

87. “My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; my father was an evangelist, a religious teacher. He and my mother traveled for thirty-five years to different parts of Igboland, spreading the gospel.”

— Chinua Achebe

88. “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.”

— Chinua Achebe

89. “Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig.”

— Chinua Achebe

90. “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

91. “What is modesty but inverted pride?”

— Chinua Achebe

92. “The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this great diversity – that it’s this or maybe that – you have just one large statement; it is this.”

— Chinua Achebe

93. “A man’s life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.”

— Chinua Achebe

94. “The inquisitive monkey gets a bullet in the face.”

— Chinua Achebe

95. “How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

— Chinua Achebe

96. “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.”

— Chinua Achebe

97. “To me, being an intellectual doesn’t mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.”

— Chinua Achebe

98. “Travellers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves.”

— Chinua Achebe

99. “Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.”

— Chinua Achebe

100. “When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.”

— Chinua Achebe