Igbo sayings and proverbs are far more valuable to me as a human being in understanding the complexity of the world than the doctrinaire, self-righteous strain of the Christian faith I was taught.
That we may accept a limitation on our actions but never, under no circumstances, must we accept restriction on our thinking.
Have you not heard that when two brothers fight a stranger reaps the harvest?
Africa never spared those who did what they liked instead of what they had to do.
A man who asks questions does not lose his way; that is what our fathers taught us.
There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that a Biafran plane landed in another African country, and the pilot and all of the crew came out, and there was not a white man among them. The people of this other country – which is a stooge of France – couldn’t comprehend a plane being landed without any white people. They said, “Where is the pilot? Where are the white people?” They arrested the crew, presuming there had been a rebellion in the air!
A fox must be chased away first; after that the hen might be warned against wandering into the bush.
But let the slave who sees another cast into a shallow grave know that he will be buried in the same way when his day comes.
The inquisitive monkey gets a bullet in the face.
My father used to say that it is the fear of causing offense that makes men swallow poison.
If my enemy speaks the truth I will not say because it is spoken by my enemy I will not listen.
But it was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth, like learning to become left-handed in old age.
There is no story that is not true,” said Uchendu. “The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.
Men of today have learnt to shoot without missing and so I have learnt to fly without perching.
We have a saying that a snake is never as long as the stick to which we liken its length.
Our people say that if you thank a man for what he has done he will have strength to do more.
But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also.
Okonkwo was ruled by one passion – to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness.
As she stood gazing at the circular darkness which has swallowed them, tears gushed from her eyes, and she swore within her that if she heard Ezinma cry she would rush into the cave to defend her against all the gods in the world. She would die with her.
And immediately Okonkwo’s eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply.
How can a man who has killed five men in a battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their family number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.