I think as you grow up and you see things which are around you and you ask questions and you hear the answers, your situation becomes more and more of a puzzle. Now, why is it like this, why are things like this and since writing is one way in which one can ask this questions and try to find these answers, it seems to me a very natural thing to do, especially as it meant stories which I always found moving, almost unbearably necessary.
Chinua AchebeThe world is large,โ said Okonkwo. โI have even heard that in some tribes a manโs children belong to his wife and her family.โ โThat cannot be,โ said Machi. โYou might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.
Chinua AchebeWe don't want to be simply wandering about without some kind of reason, we want our presence here to have a purpose, and that we are not going to end here, we are going to proceed somewhere else, and also that we didn't begin here, that we began somewhere else and all that living, all that elaborate account of our presence seems to be quite basic to our nature and so this is what literacy taps into.
Chinua AchebeIt is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors.
Chinua Achebe