Chinua Achebe Giving Quotations

As a rule I don't like suffering to no purpose. Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely.

Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!

Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.

I grew up recognizing that there was nobody to give me any advice and that you do your best and if it's not good enough, someday you will come to terms with that.

The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.