Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart (1958)

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A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness

Chinua Achebe
The world is large, said Okonkwo. I have even heard that in some tribes a man's children belong to his wife and her family. That cannot be, said Machi. You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.

Chinua Achebe
No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.

Chinua Achebe
"Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death. Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory." [...] They offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take. And to their great amazement the missionaries thanked them and burst into song.

Chinua Achebe
The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.

Chinua Achebe
Even the village rain-maker no longer claimed to be able to intervene. He could not stop the rain now, just as he would not attempt to start it in the heart of the dry season, without serious danger to his own health.

Chinua Achebe
Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life - to drive the crowd away from His church.

Chinua Achebe
And when, as on that day, nine of the greatest masked spirits in the clan came out together it was a terrifying spectacle. [...] Okonkwo's wives, and perhaps other women as well, might have noticed that the second egwugwu had the springy walk of Okonkwo. And they might also have noticed that Okonkwo was not among the titled men and elders who sat behind the row of egwugwu. But if they thought these things they kept them to themselves. The egwugwu with the springy walk was one of the dead fathers of the clan.

Chinua Achebe
At the most one could say that his chi or... personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed.

Chinua Achebe
It was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth, like learning to become left-handed in old age.

Chinua Achebe
Eneke the bird was asked why he was always on the wing and he replied: "Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig."

Chinua Achebe
I have learnt that a man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.

Chinua Achebe
If I hold her hand she says, 'Don't touch!' If I hold her foot she says 'Don't touch!' But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.

Chinua Achebe
A proud heart can survive general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.

Chinua Achebe
The white man is very clever. He came quietly with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.

Chinua Achebe
The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a resonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.'

Chinua Achebe
[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?

Chinua Achebe
If you had been poor in your last life I would have asked you to be rich when you come again. But you were rich. If you had been a coward, I would have asked you to bring courage. But you were a fearless warrior. If you had died young, I would have asked you to get life. But you lived long. So I shall ask you to come again the way you came before.

Chinua Achebe
Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond.

Chinua Achebe
There was a saying in Umuofia that as a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.

Chinua Achebe
When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.

Chinua Achebe
When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth

Chinua Achebe
Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate that the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself.

Chinua Achebe
For an African writing in English is not without its serious setbacks. He often finds himself describing situations or modes of thought which have no direct equivalent in the English way of life. Caught in that situation he can do one of two things. He can try and contain what he wants to say within the limits of conventional English or he can try to push back those limits to accommodate his ideas … I submit that those who can do the work of extending the frontiers of English so as to accommodate African thought-patterns must do it through their mastery of English and not out of innocence.

Chinua Achebe
It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.

Chinua Achebe
A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.

Chinua Achebe
Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.

Chinua Achebe
Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

Chinua Achebe
The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors. There was coming and going between them, especially at festivals and also when an old man died, because an old man was very close to the ancestors. A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.

Chinua Achebe
We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the egret perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break.

Chinua Achebe