"On her way back to their room, it occurred to Nnu Ego that she was a prisoner, imprisoned by her love for her children, imprisoned in her role as the senior wife."

"God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody’s appendage? she prayed desperately."

"She had been trying to be traditional in a modern urban setting. It was because she wanted to be a woman of Ibuza in a town like Lagos that she lost her child. This time she was going to play according to the new rules."

"Nnaife did not realise that Dr Meers's laughter was inspired by that type of wickedness that reduces any man, white or black, intelligent or not, to a new low; lower than the basest of animals, for animals at least respected each other's feelings, each other's dignity."

"Her love and duty for her children were like her chain of slavery."

"Nnu Ego was like those not-so well-informed Christians who,promised the Kingdom of Heaven,believed that it was literally just round the corner and that Jesus Christ was coming on the very morrow. Many of them would hardly contribute anything ton this world,reasoning, "What is the use? Christ will come soon" They became so insulated in their beliefs that not only would they have little to do with ordinary sinners,people going about their daily work, they even pitied them and in many cases looked down on them because the Kingdom of God was not for the likes of them. Maybe this was a protective mechanism devised to save them from realities too painful to accept."

"(Chapter 2, Page 18)"

"Men here are too busy being white men’s servants to be men. We women mind the home. Not our husbands. Their manhood has been taken away from them. The shame is that they don’t know it."

"Nigerians are what they are only because their leaders are not what they should be.”"

"Look at our collapsing public utilities, our inefficient and wasteful parastatals and state-owned companies… If you want electricity, you buy your own generator; if you want water, you sink your own bore-hole; if you want to travel, you set up your own airline. One day soon, said a friend of mine, you will have to build your own post office to send your letters!”"

"Unlucky is the country where indiscipline is seen by ordinary people as the prerogative of the high and might. For, by the same token, discipline will be seen as a penalty which the rank and file must pay for their powerlessness."

"“I must now touch, however briefly, on the grace undermining of national discipline which the siren mentality of Nigerian leaders fosters. In all civilized countries the siren is used in grave emergencies by fire engines, ambulances and the police in actual pursuit of crime. Nigeria, with its remarkable genius of travesty, has found a way to turn yet another useful invention by serious-minded people elsewhere into a childish and cacophonous instrument for the celebration of status.”"

"My frank and honest opinion is that anybody who can say that corruption in Nigeria has not yet become alarming is either a fool, a crook or else does not live in this country."

"The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership."

"Knowledgeable observers have estimated that as much as 60 percent of the wealth of its nation is regularly consumed by corruption. I have no doubt that defenders of our system would retort: Mere rumor! Where is the proof? No one can offer ‘satisfactory’ proof for the simple reason that nobody issues a receipt for a bribe or for money stolen from the public till.”"

"What has happened to Africa is very severe. We are talking about the collapse of this and the collapse of that, of good government, of the economy particularly. And this has hit education badly. The news you get from the universities in Nigeria is often appalling. I don't think a lot of it gets out. There is the obsession with cults and all kinds of dreadful things going on and all this is taking its toll and it is not surprising that quality of students and graduates who come out is not good. It will not be surprising if this shows in the quality of work they do."

"The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example with are the hallmarks of true leadership."

"One of the commonest manifestations of under-development is a tendency among the ruling elite to live in a world of make-believe and unrealistic expectations. This is the cargo cult mentality that anthropologists sometimes speak about - a belief by backward people that someday, without any exertion whatsoever on their own part, a fairy ship will dock in their harbour laden with every goody they have always dreamed of possessing."

"In fact, some weeks ago when the trial first began, Mr. Green, his boss, who was one of the Crown witnesses, had also said something about a young man of great promise. And Obi had remained completely unmoved. Mercifully he had recently lost his mother, and Clara had gone out of his life. The two events following closely on each other had dulled his sensibility and left him a different man, able to look words like ‘education’ and ‘promise’ squarely in the face. But now when the supreme moment came he was betrayed by treacherous tears."

"In spite of conventional opinion Nigeria has been less than fortunate in its leadership. A basic element of this misfortune is the seminal absence of intellectual rigour in the political thought of our founding fathers - a tendency to pious materialistic woolliness and self-centred pedestrianism."

"What deadlier betrayer is there than one's own body? What fouler enemy had the human being than desire that flows in his own veins? Marimba was lost."

"Spurious patriotism is one of the hallmarks of Nigeria's privileged classes whose generally unearned positions of sudden power and wealth must seem unreal even to themselves. To lay the ghost of their insecurity they talk patriotically."

"THE TROUBLE WITH NIGERIA"

"Please don’t mourn me for long; and see that however much you love our daughter Nnu Ego you allow her to have a life of her own, a husband if she wants one. Allow her to be a woman.”"

"We are not heathens."

"Mr. Green was famous for speaking his mind. He wiped his red face with the white towel on his neck. ‘The African is corrupt through and through.’”"

"I have tasted putrid flesh in the spoon."

"You know book, but this is no matter for book."

"All the same they must go. This no be them country."

"Take this matter of twenty pounds ... which ... was the root cause of all his troubles."

"E no be like dat ... Him na gentleman. No fit take bribe."

"His full name was Obiajulu—'the mind at last is at rest.'"

"Obi wanted to rush out of his car and shout: “Stop. Let’s go and get married now,” but he couldn’t and didn’t. The doctor’s car drove away."

"What would be the point of going to Umuofia? She would have been buried by the time he got there anyway."

"Mr. Okonkwo believed utterly and completely in the things of the white man. And the symbol of white man’s power was the written word, or better still, the printed word."

"Everybody wondered why. The learned judge, as we have seen, could not comprehend how an educated young man and so on and so forth.""

"In that short question he said in effect that Obi’s mission-house upbringing and European education had made him a stranger in his country –the most painful thing one could say to Obi.""

"He said life was like a bowl of wormwood which one sips ... without end."

"Na so this world be."

"It was clear he loved Africa, but only Africa of a kind: the Africa of Charles, the messenger, the Africa of his gardenboy and steward boy. He must have come originally with an ideal –to bring light into the heart of darkness..."

"A bald man with the tubby figure of a peasant woman’ and pale lashes, ‘like a cat’s’"

"We are sending you to learn book. Enjoyment can wait. Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world.”"

"He is not a god but he is no longer human either. He is in some sense, beyond the human, beyond man. **Pages ** Page 242."

"That was Obi’s mistake Number One. Everybody expected a young man from England to be impressively turned-out.”"

"‘famished children waiting for the angel of death’"

"What of me, what of my place in your utopia?’ ("

"Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly forever. Conventional tragedy is too easy. The hero dies and we feel a purging of the emotions. A real tragedy takes place in a corner, in an untidy spot, to quote W.H. Auden.”"

"‘a man of gifts, a man of special insight’ ("

"Am the very one who died and was buried... Pavel the one who lives and will always live’"

"Not only old, but a ghost, an angry, abandoned spirit’"