Chinua Achebe Quotes

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.

Repentance is for little children.

Better a child should be ignorant of a thousand truths than have consecrated in its heart a single lie.

The child race is fresh, eager, interested, innocent, imaginative, healthy and full of faith, where the adult race, more often than not, is stale, spiritually debauched, unimaginative, unhealthy, and without faith.

Children add to the wonder of being alive.

A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten.

Time is a game played beautifully by children.

When the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hang it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune.

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.

So far as I have myself observed, the distinctive character of a child is to live always in the tangible present.

God has pity on kindergarten children

They looked like two children," she told me. And that thought frightened her, because she'd always felt that only children are capable of everything.

We start out in our lives as little children, full of light and the clearest vision.

I was kind of sweet kid, according my mother, and my recollections. Thoughtful and good, but kind of alone - although I didn't interpret it that way, as such. Children never interpret these things. They think they understand logically.

Children lack morality, but they also lack fake morality.

It is indeed a mistake to confuse children with angels

All children are essentially criminal.

Be a child again. Flirt. Giggle. Dip your cookies in your milk. Take a nap. Say you're sorry if you hurt someone. Chase a butterfly. Be a child again.

Being a child is in itself a profession.

Imagine for a moment playing by children's rules. If you were at a party and saw someone you liked, you could just go and hold their hand. If they then try to kiss you and you don't like it, you can push them over. If your aunty gives you a Christmas present that you're not too keen on, you can throw it back in her face and burst into tears. You can gallop freely. You can skip. Children have got it right. The tragedy is, none of this is permissible as an adult. Although one thing surely is – and I'll bet you know what I'm going to say – that's right, the galloping. Such fun!

All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless at all.

And true love waits In haunted attics And true love lives On lollipops and crisps

Only children believe they're capable of everything. They're trusting and fearless; they believe in their own power and get exactly what they want. When children grow up, they start to realize that they're not as powerful as they thought and that they need other people in order survive. Then the child begins to love and to hope his love will be requited; and as life goes on, he develops an ever-greater need to be loved in return, even if that means having to give up his power. We all end up where we are now: Grown-ups doing everything we can to be accepted and loved.

I think God's a pretty fair guy.