Chinua Achebe Quotes

Life's fairly excruciating. Painful things happen. Every now and then, you drag yourself out of the stream and stand on the bank gasping for air. I think that's how I work.

I don't think one ever stops struggling.

Life's pain. You just have to get over as much of it as you can. -Isabel Culpeper

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: 'It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.

Even as a child, I found a way to survive.

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.

Life is, and should be, a little hard. Getting punched in the face or getting an occasional concussion will probably happen to us all at some point in our lives. We can handle it.

After my father died, we faced hardship but never asked anybody for help. We were self-sufficient.

The only thing I know how to do is survive.

I was injured many times, but life is like this, and I have to accept this.

I've been through so much stuff that I hope even my enemies wouldn't have to go through.

I've known struggle.

The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.

There are many trials in life which do not seem to come from unwisdom or folly; they are silver arrows shot from the bow of God, and fixed inextricably in the quivering heart - they are meant to be borne - they were not meant, like snow or water, to melt as soon as they strike; but the moment an ill can be patiently borne it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

You must remember that no one lives a life free from pain and suffering.

Though there were moments of beauty, Mariam knew for the most part that life had been unkind to her.

He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.

You can and you must expect suffering.

What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.

Strange how it was always the spoiled who weakened and cried first, and it was the injured, the maimed, the blind, and the poor who fought on alone.

The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.

Life is hard? True - but let's love it anyhow, though it breaks every bone in our bodies.

It's been a long rocky life, with plenty of possibility but too much human ugliness.