Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, is a novel about Africa’s destructive encounter with European colonization.
The story is told through the experiences of a fictional character named Okonkwo.
Okonkwo is a wealthy and successful Igbo warrior of Okonkwo in the 1800s.
Not only must Okonkwo deal with enemies in his tribes, but he must also face the relentless destruction of his culture by the encroaching Europeans.
Things Fall Apart Quotes With Page Numbers Part One
“Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk.
“I have kola,” he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc over to his guest.
“Thank you. He who brings kola brings life. But I think you ought to break it,” replied Okoye passing back the disc.
“No, it is for you, I think,” and they argued like this for a few moments before Unoka accepted the honor of breaking the kola. Okoye, meanwhile, took the lump of chalk, drew some lines on the floor, and then painted his big toe.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 1, Pages 5, 6
“He who brings kola brings life.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 1, Page 6
“Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 1, Page 7
“Our elders say that the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 1, Pages 7, 8
“Fortunately, among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 1, Page 8
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“Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 1, Page 8
“A snake was never called by its name at night, because it would hear. It was called a string.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 2, Page 9
“When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 2, Page 10
“Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.
It was deeper and more intimate that the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw.
Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 2, Page 13
“When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 3, Page 17
“As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 3, Page 22
“Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 3, Page 22
“It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 3, Page 24
“Do not despair. I know you will not despair. You have a manly and a proud heart. A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 3, Page 25
“Looking at a king’s mouth, ‘ said an old man, ‘one would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 4, Page 26
“If ever a man deserved his success, that man was Okonkwo. At an early age he had achieved fame as the greatest wrestler in all the land. That was not luck. At the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man say 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.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 4, Page 27
“At the most one could say that his chi or … personal god was good. But 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. ”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 4, Page 27
“But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 4, Page 27
“To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 4, Page 28
“Ogbuef Ezedudu,who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men when they came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan.
“It has not always been so,” he said. “My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. but after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the peace which it was meant to preserve.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 4, Page 31
“And now the rains had really come, so heavy and persistent that 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. The personal dynamism required to counter the forces of these extremes of weather would be far too great for the human frame.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 4, Pages 33, 34
“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.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 7, Page 53
“How can a man who has killed five men in a battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their family number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 8, Page 65
“When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth”
~Chinua Achebe , Things Fall Apart, Chapter 8, Pages 70, 71
“The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.”
“That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 8, Page 74
“Mosquito […] had asked Ear to marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. “How much longer do you think you will live?” she asked. “You are already a skeleton.” Mosquito went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still alive.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 9, Page 75
“You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 11, Page 97
“When the moon rose late in the night, people said it was refusing food, as a sullen husband refuses his wife’s food when they have quarrelled.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 11, Page 105
“If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’
If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’
But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.”~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 12, Page 118, 119
“If you had been poor in your last life I would have asked you to be rich when you come again. But you were rich. If you had been a coward, I would have asked you to bring courage. But you were a fearless warrior. If you had died young, I would have asked you to get life. But you lived long. So I shall ask you to come again the way you came before.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 13, Page 123
Things Fall Apart Part Two Quotes
“Then listen to me,’ he said and cleared his throat. ‘It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme. Is it right that you, Okonkwo, should bring your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may displease the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wives and children and take them back to your fatherland after seven years. But if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you, they will all die in exile.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 14, Page 134
“It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 14, Page 134
“You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried—children I begot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 14, Page 135
“For whom is it well, for whom is it well?
There is no one for whom it is well.”~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 14, Page 135
“Mother Kite once sent her daughter to bring food. She went, and brought back a duckling. ‘You have done very well,’ said Mother Kite to her daughter, ‘but tell me, what did the mother of this duckling say when you swooped and carried its child away?’ ‘It said nothing,’ replied the young kite. ‘It just walked away.’ ‘You must return the duckling,’ said Mother Kite. ‘There is something ominous behind the silence.’ And so Daughter Kite returned the duckling and took a chick instead. ‘What did the mother of this chick do?’ asked the old kite. ‘It cried and raved and cursed me,’ said the young kite. ‘Then we can eat the chick,’ said her mother. ‘There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 15, Page 140
“There is no story that is not true.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 15, Page 141
“There is no story that is not true, … The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 15, Page 141
“The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 15, Page 141
“I do not know how to thank you.’
‘I can tell you,’ said Obierika. ‘Kill one of your sons for me.’
‘That will not be enough,’ said Okonkwo.
‘Then kill yourself,’ said Obierika.”~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 15, Page 142
“He saw himself and his fathers crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and finding nothing but ashes of bygone days..”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 17, Page 153
“And immediately Okonkwo’s eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 17, Page 153
“When a man blasphemes, what do we do? Do we go and stop his mouth? No. We put our fingers into our ears to stop us hearing. This is a wise action.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 18, Page 158
“We do not ask for wealth because he that has health and children will also have wealth. We do not pray to have money but to have more kinsmen. We are better than animals because we have kinsmen. An animal rubs its itching flank against a tree, a man asks his kinsman to scratch him.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 19, Page 165
“A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 19, Page 166
“A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 19, Pages 166, 167
Things Fall Apart Part Three Quotes
“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably 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.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 20, Page 176
“He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 20, Page 176
“Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord’s holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life – to drive the crowd away from His church.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 22, Page 184
“There was a saying in Umuofia that as a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 22, Page 185
“Eneke the bird was asked why he was always on the wing and he replied: ‘Men have learnt to shoot without missing their mark and I have learnt to fly without perching on a twig.’ ”
~Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Chapter 24, Pages 203, 204
“The Commissioner went away, taking three or four of the soldiers with him. In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learned a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details s cutting a hanged man from a tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. As he walked back to the court he thought about that book. Every day brought him some new material. The story of the man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter ob him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.”
~Chinua Achebe (Author), Things Fall Apart, Chapter 25, Pages 208, 209