18 quotes
Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
Proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
A proud heart can survive general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
"Beware Okonkwo!" she warned. "Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!"
Things Fall Apart (1958)
As a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
Eneke the bird was asked why he was always on the wing and he replied: "Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig."
Things Fall Apart (1958)
It was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth, like learning to become left-handed in old age.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the egret perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, called the converts the excrement of the clan, and the new faith was a mad dog that had come to eat it up.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
The Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly, so his chi agreed. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
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.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
The white man is very clever. He came quietly with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
But he was not the man to go about telling his neighbors that he was in error. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the clan. His enemies said that his good fortune had gone to his head.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
After such treatment it would think twice before coming again, unless it was one of the stubborn ones who returned, carrying the stamp of their mutilation--a missing finger or perhaps a dark line where the medicine man's razor had cut them.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors. There was coming and going between them, especially at festivals and also when an old man died, because an old man was very close to the ancestors. A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
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)