Chinua Achebe

“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”

“Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the...”

“When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth”

“People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.”

“The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!”

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”

“But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side...”

“I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He...”

“Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensively.”

“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.”

“My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; my father was an evangelist, a religious teacher. He and my mother traveled for thirty-five...”

“I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's...”

“People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.”

“When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men...”

“An artist, in my understanding of the word, should side with the people against the Emperor that oppresses his or her people.”

“I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects. That's different from prescribing a way in which a wri...”

“When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.”

“What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.”

“They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.”

“I've had trouble now and again in Nigeria because I have spoken up about the mistreatment of factions in the country because of difference in religion. These are things we should put behind...”