410 Quotes by Chinua Achebe

An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb

My people have a saying which my father often used. A man whose horse is missing will look everywhere even in the roof.

Do your people have a proverb about a man looking for something inside the bag of a man looking for something?

We shall live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest, and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break

Our humanity is contingent on the humanity of our fellows. No person or group can be human alone. We rise above the animal together, or not at all. If we learned that lesson even this late in the day, we would have taken a truly millennial step forward.

There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.

And strange are the ways of deep emotion.

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.

A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.