While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.
Chinua AchebeI think dialects should be left alone. People should write in whatever dialect they feel they want to write. In the fullness of time, these dialects will sort themselves out.
Chinua AchebeIf you're rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving, and this is the way I think the world's stories should be told - from many different perspectives.
Chinua AchebeThere is that great proverb - that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It's not one man's job. It's not one person's job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail - the bravery, even, of the lions.
Chinua AchebeUnoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk. "I have kola," he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc over to his guest. "Thank you. He who brings kola brings life. But I think you ought to break it," replied Okoye passing back the disc. "No, it is for you, I think," and they argued like this for a few moments before Unoka accepted the honor of breaking the kola. Okoye, meanwhile, took the lump of chalk, drew some lines on the floor, and then painted his big toe.
Chinua AchebeI 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 Achebe