A kinsman in trouble had to be saved, not blamed; anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.
Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest. That’s not the way my people rear their children. They let them experience the world as it is.
Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.
And theories are no more than fictions which help us to make sense of experience and which are subject to disconfirmation when their explanations are no longer adequate.
Many writers can’t make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don’t really know about its value to the student. I don’t mean it’s useless. But I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to teach me how to write.
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.
He who fights for a ne’er-do-well has nothing to show for it except a head covered in earth and grime.
A chief does not hurry.
Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly for ever.
Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked.
Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensively.
After a war life catches desperately at passing hints of normalcy like vines entwining a hollow twig.
I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.
They say a man is like a funeral ram which must take whatever beating comes to it without opening its mouth; only the silent tremor of pain down its body tells of its suffering.
When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth.
One would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.
If one finger brings oil it soils the others.
When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun.
A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.
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.