"Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world."  
 
Achebe, Chinua.  Things Fall Apart.   
For more creative quotations see: 
http://www.bemorecreative.com/one/890.htm

"In all great componds there must be people of all minds - some good, some bad, some fearless and some cowardly; those who bring in wealth and those who scatter it, those who give good advice and those who only speak the words of palm wine. That is why we say that whatever tune you play in the compond of a great man there is always someone to dance to it."  

The above quotation is quoted by Nwabu Nnebe from an uncited work by Chinua Achebe.  To find more proverbs by Achebe, as well as this one go to: 
http://www.lioness.cm.utexas.edu/Igbo.dir/proverb.htm 
 

Chinua Achebe Cheat Sheet (a brief biographical sketch) Chinua Achebe was born November 16, 1930 in Ogidi, Nigeria to the name Albert Chinualumoga Achebe.  He is the son of Isaiah and Janet Achebe and was married to Christie Chinwe Okoli in 1961.  Together, his wife Christie and he have four children: Chinelo (daughter), Ikechukwu (son) Chidi (son), and Nwando (daughter).  He is considered by many critics to be one of the best contemporary African authors and has written several works since the late 1950’s.  Chinua Achebe’s writings include:  Things Fall Apart (novel) 1959 No Longer At Ease (novel) 1960 The Sacrificial Egg and Other Stories 1962 Arrow of God (novel) 1964 A Man of the People (novel) 1966 Chicke and the River 1966 Beware Soul-Brother and Other Poems 1971 The Insider: Stories of War and Peace from Nigeria 1971 How the Leopard Got His Claws 1972 Lament of the Deer 1973 Girls at War (short stories) 1973 Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems 1973 Morning Yet on Creation Day (essays) 1975 The Flute 1978 The Drum 1978  According to G. D. Killam, all of Achebe’s writings display three concerns: “first, with the legacy of colonialism at both the individual and societal level; secondly, with the fact of English as a language of national and international exchange,;thirdly, with the obligations and responsibilities of the writer both to the society in which he lives and to his art.”**

 
 **For further explanation on the above quotation, see the influences page of this website. 

Last revised on  3/26/98 by Lauren Parrino and Jessica Sherwood