Quote

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

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
Death
Rite
Men
Nearer
Life
Ancestors
Ancestor
Transition
Brought
Series
Birth
Rites

More quotes by 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
After a war life catches desperately at passing hints of normalcy like vines entwining a hollow twig.
Chinua Achebe
Image
If you're rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving, and this is the way I think the world's stories should be told - from many different perspectives.
Chinua Achebe
Image
What a man does not know is greater than he.
Chinua Achebe
Image
A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.
Chinua Achebe
Image
There was a saying in Umuofia that as a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.
Chinua Achebe
Image
We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
Chinua Achebe
Image
You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.
Chinua Achebe
Image
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
Image
The language of young men is pull down and destroy but an old man speaks of conciliation.
Chinua Achebe
Image
A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
Chinua Achebe
Image
My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don’t see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity. To make humanity uncomfortable, yes. But intrinsically to be against humanity, that I don’t take.
Chinua Achebe
Image
When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Beware Okonkwo! she warned. Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!
Chinua Achebe
Image
When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
Chinua Achebe
Image
When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun.
Chinua Achebe
Image
No man however great is greater than his people
Chinua Achebe
Image
When I think of the standing, the importance and the erudition of all these people who see nothing about racism in Heart of Darkness, I'm convinced that we must really be living in different worlds.
Chinua Achebe
Image
A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
Chinua Achebe
Image
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.
Chinua Achebe