Chinua Achebe Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“The relationship with my people, the Nigerian people, is very good. My relationship with the rulers has always been problematic.”

“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 years to different parts of Igboland, spreading the gospel.”

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

“Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.”

“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.”

“Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 writer should write.”

“I was a supporter of the desire, in my section of Nigeria, to leave the federation because it was treated very badly with something that was called genocide in those days.”