Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
When a new saying gets to the land of empty men, they lose their heads over it.
Chinua Achebe
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Land
Men
Heads
Empty
Gets
Lose
Loses
Saying
More quotes by Chinua Achebe
Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.
Chinua Achebe
It is as though the ancestors who made language and knew from what bestiality its use rescued them are saying to us: Beware of interfering with its purpose! For when language is seriously interfered with, when it is disjoined from truth, be it from mere incompetence or worse, from malice, horrors can descend again on mankind.
Chinua Achebe
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
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.
Chinua Achebe
What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.
Chinua Achebe
It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
Chinua Achebe
I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.
Chinua Achebe
A chief does not hurry.
Chinua Achebe
I'm very primitive I write with a pen.
Chinua Achebe
...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
Chinua Achebe
I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.
Chinua Achebe
The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
Chinua Achebe
When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.
Chinua Achebe
In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint.
Chinua Achebe
The most awful thing about power is not that it corrupts absolutely but that it makes people so utterly boring, so predictable.
Chinua Achebe
I couldn't tell you why but now I know a story is in fact where you discover who you are, where a culture discovers what it is and I just think that this is a terribly important place to get into and that I would enjoy it.
Chinua Achebe
It is difficult to express the reality of Ibo society in classical English.
Chinua Achebe
We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
Chinua Achebe
What is modesty but inverted pride?
Chinua Achebe
The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.
Chinua Achebe
