Quote

I do not actually see how art, literature can be anything other that being in that domain of trying to tell us, trying to get us to see what is important in our lives.

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
Actually
Lives
Tell
Art
Anything
Important
Trying
Domain
Literature

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

Image
I think dialects should be left alone. People should write in whatever dialect they feel they want to write. In the fullness of time, these dialects will sort themselves out.
Chinua Achebe
Image
He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.
Chinua Achebe
Image
The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
Chinua Achebe
Image
I think the language that we use in dealing with one another is very important. And even if I am called upon to bring out some money to support a regime, and I am entitled to say I do not like what that regime does and obviously I am not going to put money there - you cannot really say this is wrong or this is unreasonable.
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
When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate
Chinua Achebe
Image
An angry man is always a stupid man.
Chinua Achebe
Image
The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
Chinua Achebe
Image
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
Image
Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.
Chinua Achebe
Image
Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
Chinua Achebe
Image
As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.
Chinua Achebe
Image
There was a saying in Umuofia that as a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.
Chinua Achebe
Image
What is modesty but inverted pride?
Chinua Achebe
Image
Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig.
Chinua Achebe
Image
We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
Chinua Achebe
Image
...Nothing puzzles God
Chinua Achebe
Image
There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
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
It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.
Chinua Achebe