In reading over Chinua Achebe's background, some really eloquent, interesting quotes came up...so here are some of them.
"The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery."
"People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories"
"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 lived in the next room"
"My weapon is literature"
"One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised"
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I really like the second and last quotes! What’s interesting to me about the second quote is that it implies a sort of cycle, like we’ve been talking about in class recently.
Well, you got me interested, so here are some other Achebe quotes I really appreciate…
“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”
“While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.”
“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.”
“To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.”
“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: "He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”
I also like this one because it goes along with our proverbs discussion in class.
“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
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