I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write. That's my own taste. I prefer to stumble on it.
Chinua AchebeColonial rule means that power, initiative is taken away from you by somebody else who makes your decisions. If that goes on long enough, beyond one generation, then the habit of self-rule is forgotten. People are no longer able to realize what it means. To be dependant for a hundred years! And suddenly when this thing ends there is nobody who actually knows how to set about running the country.
Chinua AchebeIn the vocabulary of certain radical theorists contradictions are given the status of some deadly disease to which their opponents alone can succumb. But contradictions are the very stuff of life. If there had been a little dash of contradiction among the Gadarene swine some of them might have been saved from drowning.
Chinua AchebeWhen I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
Chinua AchebeWhen 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.
Chinua AchebeIn America there is really very little knowledge of the literature of the rest of the world. Of the literature of Latin America, yes, But that's not all that different in inspiration from that of America, or of Europe. One must go further. You don't even have to go too far in terms of geography - you can start with the Native Americans and listen to their poetry.
Chinua Achebe