Chinua Achebe

“Proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten.”

“It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.”

“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

“A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.”

“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

“To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.”

“People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.”

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”

“When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”

“Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.”

“The world is like a mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.”

“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.”

“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”

“My weapon is literature.”

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

“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. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”