Chinua Achebe Quotes

I work hard and support myself.

I think these days a lot of the younger generation feels that the world owes them something. But you've got to get off your backside and you've got to do all the crap stuff, too.

Freedom comes with a lot of responsibility. When you are by yourself, you have to develop a third eye.

I am my own secretary; I dictate, I compose, I copy all myself.

I've always been a workhorse, and I've been supporting myself since I was 15.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

My parents are very conservative. They taught me the value of hard work - don't depend on other people, do it yourself.

I've had to work by myself at combines before and forced myself to work out alone all the way back to high school. You have to be self-motivated.

I've had to be a man since I was 12 or 13. I had a job. And I was playing the piano for people twice my age. Handling responsibility is what makes a man a man.

Work alone is noble.

I was out of the house at 16 by my own doing. It forced me to really grow up and take care of myself, and I learned a lot of things that your parents usually teach you, on my own.

I took it as my personal responsibility to be able to juggle. I didn't want anybody to help me and I didn't expect my office to make it easy for me.

I don't want to be coddled.

Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice

You have people like Sarah Jessica Parker - and it's also because of her mother and where she came from and all that stuff - but how you're taught to be responsible for yourself rather than endlessly people waiting for you and bringing you things.

If you want your freedom, you have to be willing to work hard to exercise it.

I never expected anything to be given to me.

The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainly not to be trusted.

I would continue to do the things that I do. I'd get into the field and work, and be an example to other people that you can't rely on the government to be the answer to everything.

If I had stayed for other people to make my tools and things for me, I had never made anything.

We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance, and old-fashioned gumption. We really do.

Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.

I developed a sense of maturity when it comes to being dependent upon other people. I don't feel anyone really truly wants me to win more than I do.

Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.

I'm completely in charge of my own life now. Sometimes there's no one there to slap me on the hand and say: 'Stop being so bullish and bossy,' and things like that.