Chinua Achebe Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

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

“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.”

“My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don't see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity.”

“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 us.”

“When 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.”

“The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.”

“Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.”

“The people you see in Nigeria today have always lived as neighbors in the same space for as long as we can remember. So it's a matter of settling down, lowering the rhetoric, the level of hostility in the rhetoric is too high.”

“Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.”

“Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again. We have to begin to learn to rule ourselves again.”