No Longer at Ease Quotes

“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“Women and music should not be dated.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“A person who has not secured a place on the floor should not begin to look for a mat.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“Four years in England had filled Obi with a longing to be back in Umuofia. This feeling was sometimes so strong that he found himself feeling ashamed of studying English for his degree. He spoke Ibo whenever he had the least opportunity of doing so. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to find another Ibo-speaking student in a London bus. But when he had to speak in English with a Nigerian student from another tribe he lowered his voice. It was humiliating to have to speak to one's countryman in a foreign language, especially in the presence of the proud owners of that language. They would naturally assume that one had no language of one's own. He wished they were here today to see. Let them come to Umuofia now and listen to the talk of men who made a great art of conversation. Let them come and see men and women and children who knew how to live, whose joy of life had not yet been killed by those who claimed to teach other nations how to live.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“what kind of democracy can exist side by side with so much corruption and ignorance?”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“had said at the reconciliation meeting, that anger against a kinsman was felt in the flesh, not in the marrow”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly for ever. Conventional tragedy is too easy. The hero dies and we feel a purging of the emotions.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“A debt may get moldy, but it never decays.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer At Ease

“A fox must be chased away first; after that the hen might be warned against wandering into the bush.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“stories. One of them went regularly to a market in the neighboring village and helped himself to whatever he liked. He went in full uniform, breaking the earth with his boots, and no one dared touch him. It was said that if you touched a soldier, Government”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“For three or four weeks Obi Okonkwo had been steeling himself against this moment.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“I tell you this is Okonkwo. As it was in the beginning so it will be in the end. That is what your religion tells us.” “It does not tell you that dead men return.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“You may cause more trouble by refusing
a bribe than by accepting it. Had not a Minister of State said, albeit in an unguarded,
alcoholic moment, that the trouble was not in receiving bribes, but in failing to do the thing
for which the bribe was given? And if you refuse, how do you know that a “brother” or a
“friend” is not receiving on your behalf, having told everyone that he is your agent?”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“the words of encouragement which the bedbug was said to have spoken to her children when hot water was poured on them all. She told them not to lose heart because whatever was hot must in the end turn cold.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“Was it not a common saying among his people that a man should not, out of pride and etiquette, swallow his phlegm?”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease