Chinua Achebe Quotes

Every artist in the world likes his or her work to make people think.

We must be able to inspire. That's my goal in acting.

Variety is more than a means of avoiding boredom, since art is more than an entertainment of the senses.

Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.

As artists, our job is to communicate thoughts and tell stories.

My basic mission as an artist is to communicate with people. Therefore, I am conscious I have to make films that people can digest.

Many books that you read, they have those disclaimers that say that, "None of the events and none of the people are based on real life" and so on... Well, I don't believe that. I think that as human beings many people touch us, especially people we love the most and we can't help but do character sketches when we go to our art.

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.

When art is really great, it's really powerful, can really do something to you, make you feel more alive and make you feel more connected to something. If you don't feel like that when you do it, and you just make a movie to make money, that would be pretty boring to me. I just wouldn't do it. That would be like sitting in an office, which I don't want to do.

Art has to offer something other than stylized despair.

I enjoyed learning something and, uh, so I think like with anything in life, in the schoolroom in an artistic endeavor, if you have just a really good teacher, it's inspiring. I certainly use, in my work, I mean, I used to rely heavily on imagery. I was obsessed with this photograph that was in the NY Times of a fish engulfing a smaller fish and this smaller fish had this look in its eyes; it knew what was about to happen and, I don't know how they ever captured such an image, but I've used that for a play I (did). It's called "Saved."

When people say, 'I don't get art' ... that means art is working.

In a sense, the first (if not necessarily the prime) function of a novelist, of ANY artist, is to entertain. If the poem, painting, play or novel does not immediately engage one's surface interest then it has failed. Whatever else it may or may not be, art is also entertainment. Bad art fails to entertain. Good art does something in addition.

The whole point of art, as far as I’m concerned, is that art doesn’t make any difference. And that’s why it’s important. Take film: you can have quite extreme emotional experiences watching a movie, but they stop as soon as you walk out of the cinema. You can see people being hurt, but even though you feel those things strongly, you know they’re not real.

The true novelist is one who understands the work as a continuous poem, is a myth-maker, and the wonder of the art resides in the endless different ways of telling a story.

I think as an artist you evoke feeling and change and through that you send a message.

A picture can say 1000 words but it can also inspire you to write 1000 more.

The true test of all the arts is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind.

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

The creative impulse can be killed, but it cannot be taught. What a teacher can do... in working with children, is to give the flame enough oxygen so that it can burn. As far as I'm concerned, this providing of oxygen is one of the noblest of all vocations.

Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them?

Art is the response to the demand for entertainment, for the stimulation of our senses and imagination, and truth enters into it only as it subserves these ends.

Only the very greatest art invigorates without consoling.

Art is an expression of joy and awe. It is not an attempt to share one's virtues and accomplishments with the audience, but an act of selfless spirit.