Quote

Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.

Chinua Achebe

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Chinua Achebe
Age: 82 †
Born: 1930
Born: November 16
Died: 2013
Died: March 22
Essayist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Short Story Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Albert Chinualumogu Achebe
Art
Order
Reality
Different
Men
Constant
Create
Effort
Given

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

Image
There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me it would be wasteful for me to add to that huge number of people writing here when there are so few people writing about somewhere else.
Chinua Achebe
Image
I don't praise my people. I am their greatest critic.
Chinua Achebe
Image
I'm very primitive I write with a pen.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Unless I'm writing in the Igbo language, I use a language developed elsewhere, which is English. That affects the way I write. It even affects to some extent the stories I write.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane. H. P. LOVECRAFT, attributed, Telling It Like It Is Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.
Chinua Achebe
Image
That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
Chinua Achebe
Image
The most awful thing about power is not that it corrupts absolutely but that it makes people so utterly boring, so predictable.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Actually, I identify with all my characters, good and bad. I have to do that in order to make them genuine. I have to understand them even if I don't approve of them. Not completely - it's impossible complete identification is, in fact, not desirable.
Chinua Achebe
Image
The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.
Chinua Achebe
Image
If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum... The story is our escort. Without it we are blind... It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle.
Chinua Achebe
Image
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
Image
Once you have really done all you can, then you can show it to people. But I find this is increasingly not the case with the younger people. They do a first draft and want somebody to finish it off for them with good advice.
Chinua Achebe
Image
What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
Chinua Achebe
Image
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
Image
Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.
Chinua Achebe
Image
I'm amazed when I think about students today. They know from day one what they are going to be. We didn't. We just coasted. We just knew that things would work out.
Chinua Achebe