The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.

Chinua Achebe was an eminent Nigerian poet, critic, professor and novelist. He shot to fame with his first novel titled, ‘Things Fall Apart’, which is still widely read and is the most sought after book in modern African literature. In 2007, he won the ‘Man Booker International Prize’. He was an excellent student and earned a scholarship to study medicine, but he swapped medicine with English literature at the university. Some of his well-known works include, ‘A Man of The People’, ‘No Longer At Ease’, ‘Anthills Of The Savannah’ and ‘Arrow Of God’. We have compiled some well-known and quotable quotes and sayings by one of Africa’s foremost novelists which he expressed through his writings, poetry, novels, books, thoughts, lectures, essays, short-stories, folk stories and life. Read through the collection of thoughts and quotations by Chinua Achebe that will give you a glimpse of Igbo society, clash of western and traditional African values and the effect of Christian influences.

“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

There is no story that is not true, […] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others

If you don’t like my story,write your own

If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’
If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’
But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know

Then listen to me,’ he said and cleared his throat. ‘It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme. Is it right that you, Okonkwo, should bring your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may displease the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wives and children and take them back to your fatherland after seven years. But if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you, they will all die in exile.

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.

Do not despair. I know you will not despair. You have a manly and a proud heart. A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone

Ogbuef Ezedudu,who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men when they came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan.
“It has not always been so,” he said. “My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. but after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the peace which it was meant to preserve.

“We do not ask for wealth because he that has health and children will also have wealth. We do not pray to have money but to have more kinsmen. We are better than animals because we have kinsmen. An animal rubs its itching flank against a tree, a man asks his kinsman to scratch him.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart