Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebewas a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apartwas considered his magnum opus, and is the most widely read book in modern African literature...
NationalityNigerian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 November 1930
CityOgidi, Nigeria
CountryNigeria
morning men yams
Man is sitting disconsolate on an anthill one morning. God asks him what the matter is and man replies that the soil is too swampy for the cultivation of the yams which God has directed him to grow. God tells him to bring in a blacksmith to dry the soil with his bellows. The contribution of humanity to this creation is so important. God could have made the world perfect if he had wanted. But he made it the way it is. So that there is a constant need for us to discuss and cooperate to make it more habitable, so the soil can yield, you see.
thought-provoking
The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.
people mouths aging
When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.
years democracy wake-up
Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again. We have to begin to learn to rule ourselves again.
character worry plot
Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.
dancing want world
The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.
greatness men yams
You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree — the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.
writing stories write-your-own
If you don't like someone's story, write your own. If you don't like what somebody says, say what it is you don't like.
thought-provoking giving headache
Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
creativity fire sparks
Contradictions if well understood and managed can spark off the fires of invention. Orthodoxy whether of the right or of the left is the graveyard of creativity.
art humanity serious
Serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict.
mind littles closed-mind
Travellers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves
men land empty
When a new saying gets to the land of empty men, they lose their heads over it.
kings children hands
If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings.