93 quotes
If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
A dead end nor total loss.
Beware Soul Brother and Other Poems (1972)
At first Onitsha looked very strange to Chike. He could not say who was a thief or kidnapper and who was not. In Umuofia every thief was known, but here even people who lived under the same roof were strangers to one another.
Chike and the River (1966)
Praise bounteous providence if you will that grants even an ogre a tiny glow-worm tenderness encapsulated in icy caverns of a cruel heart or else despair for in the very germ of that kindred love is lodged the perpetuity of evil.
Beware Soul Brother and Other Poems (1972)
that women supply with success to recapture their husbands’ straying affection
Marriage Is a Private Affair (1952)
obstinately ahead of his more superstitious neighbors in these matters
Marriage Is a Private Affair (1952)
it is impossible for [him] to marry Nweke’s daughter
Marriage Is a Private Affair (1952)
found a girl who will suit [him] admirably
Marriage Is a Private Affair (1952)
It began to dawn on me that although fiction was undoubtedly fictitious it could also be true or false, not with the truth or falsehood of a news item but as to its disinterestedness, its intention, its integrity.
Home and Exile (2000)
...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
The Education of a British-Protected Child (2009)
You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree — the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.
No Longer at Ease (1960)
Africa is people" may seem too simple and too obvious to some of us. But I have found in the course of my travels through the world that the most simple things can still givwe us a lot of trouble, even the brightest among us: this is particularly so in matters concerning Africa.
The Education of a British-Protected Child (2009)
The man was a complete nonentity until we crowned him, and now he carries on as though he had been nothing else all his life. It’s the same with Court Clerks and even messengers. They all manage to turn themselves into little tyrants over their own people. It seems to be a trait in the character of the negro
Arrow of God (1964)