Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe Quotes

When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so. [ ... ] But I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship. You do not know what it is to speak with one voice. And what is the result? An abominable religion has settled among you. A man can now leave his father and his brothers. He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors, like a hunter's dog that suddenly goes mad and turns on his master. I fear for you; I fear for the clan. ~ Chinua Achebe

He saw himself and his fathers crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and finding nothing but ashes of bygone days.. ~ Chinua Achebe

The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. ~ Chinua Achebe

Who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted [Nwoye's] young soul
the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul. ~ Chinua Achebe

Even very great things, he meant, can't last forever. Or beautiful things, I suppose. Those too. Things that don't really need replacing except because they fall apart. ~ Emma Richler

Even during the worst hardships, when the other things in our lives seem to fall apart, we can still find peace in the eternal love of God. ~ Armstrong Williams

Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart. ~ Vernor Vinge

Foreign behavior? What the fuck are you talking about? Foreign behavior? Have you read Things Fall Apart? Ifemulu asked, wishing she had not told Ranyinudo about Dike. She was angrier with Ranyinudo than she had ever been, yet she knew that Ranyinudo meant well, and had said what many other Nigerians would say, which was why she had not told anyone else about Dike's suicide attempt since she came back. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

With my parents, when I was younger, I always had to do two things. If I was acting, I always had to do a sport or something on the arts side of things along with that. That way, if one fell apart, I always had something else to fall back on. ~ Kaley Cuoco

Perhaps it's the word radical that needs rethinking. But what could we angle ourselves toward instead, or in addition? Openness? Is that good enough, strong enough? You're the only one who knows when you're using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you're opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is - working with it rather than struggling against it. You're the only one who knows. And the thing is, even you don't always know. ~ Maggie Nelson

There's people that get a chance to do the kind of work that changes the world, and make things really different. And there's the kind that just keeps the world from falling apart. ~ Bruce Springsteen

What do we do after things fall apart? Do we run to the familiar once again? Do we attempt to numb the pain with distractions? What do we do after things fall apart? ~ Benyf

Things fall apart, it's scientific. ~ David Byrne

Wallets can establish connections and change opinions. Things that fall apart can be glued back by money with astonishing alacrity. ~ Robert Walser

One of the worst things in the world was watching someone you love fall apart. ~ Mariana Zapata

Things fall apart, and fade, and when these things happen you just need to pick yourself up and start over, ~ Evan Reeves

Sometimes the only thing that makes sense is to slowly fall apart, for all things fall and all things shatter and sometimes people do too ~ R. M. Drake

I find so many opportunities to fall, to falter, and fail when I refuse to surrender to change. Change will come into my room and rearrange my tidy world. Then like dominoes, one things changed falls upon another until it feels like the world is collapsing around me. But when I yield, when I surrender to the necessary change, I can stand back and look at the beautiful picture created by what seemed to be my world falling apart. ~ Stella Payton

Ex-sisters. Which sounds exactly like existers. And I guess it fits, because that's exactly how things fall apart. That's all it takes. Just the fact you're two different people. Just the fact that you exist outside each other. I get this ache in my chest when I think about it. I try to shake the feeling away. ~ Becky Albertalli

Xinxin Ming or Trust in the Heart


The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference, and heaven and earth are set apart.

If you want the truth [of nonduality] to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease.
When the Way is not understood, the mind chatters endlessly to no avail.

The Perfect Way is vastness without holiness.
Like infinite space it contains all and lacks nothing.
Because you pick and choose, cling and reject, you can't see its Suchness.

Neither be entangled in the world, nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things,
And dualism vanishes of its own accord.

Craving the passivity of Oneness you are filled with activity.
As long as you tarry in dualism,
You will never know Oneness.

If you don't trust in the Heart, you fall into assertion or denial.
In this world of Suchness there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To be in accord with the Way, let go of all self-centered striving.

Denying the world [of duality] is the asserting of it;
Asserting emptiness [oneness] is the denying of it.
The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you go.

To return to the root [the One] is to ~ Sengcan

I know why we all fell apart, that's just what happens. But things that fall apart can be put back together, right? Even if there's a piece missing. ~ Non Pratt

She looked over the bins of tinselly junk and felt despair, trying to find one single thing that wouldn't fall apart before you got it home. Maybe her father was lucky to die young with his pride of craftsmanship intact. What would he make of this world? Realistically, it probably wasn't slave children, but there had to be armies of factory workers making this slapdash stuff, underpaid people cranking out things for underpaid people to buy and use up, living their lives mostly to cancel each other out. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else's snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It's world-creating.

It's raw, exposed dreaming. It's humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next.

It's what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience. ~ Laurie Perez

The window gave onto a view of dove-gray roofs and balconies, each one containing the same cracked flowerpot and sleeping feline. It was as if the entire city of Paris had agreed to abide by a single understated taste. Each neighbor was doing his or her own to keep up standards, which was difficult because the French ideal wasn't clearly delineated like the neatness and greenness of American lawns, but more of a picturesque disrepair. It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

It's only a matter of time before it all starts to fall apart, before things start to fall off. Short legs, long body. The kind of person who in the Middle Ages would come up over the hill on his horse, and they'd say, 'Get Wogan,' and I'd be there with my shield, the first to die. ~ Terry Wogan

I thought I could rely on the plot in the novel and fill in the colour between the lines, but I made a mistake with that assumption. It was really, really hard because you pull a few things apart and then you realise how everything relies on everything else and it can all fall apart. ~ Ben Affleck

Trust in God's timing. It's better to have to wait a while and have things fall into place then to rush into something and have things fall apart. ~ Adam Cappa

Sometimes good things the best things coincide fall apart. ~ Marilyn Monroe

But maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart. ~ Haruki Murakami

Once you start altering your body's blueprint, things start falling apart. Some players take steroids, and two years later, after they've broken records, suddenly they have back problems, shoulder problems, arm problems. They're out of the game for good. ~ Charlie Sheen

Every single day the world seems like it is on the brink of falling apart. But then I look outside my window, and things look about the same as they did a week ago. It's almost a form of cognitive dissonance. ~ Moby

Better for things to fall apart a little now, while you can still put them back together, than for you to wait until there's no hope. ~ Noelle Adams

That's the thing about things. They fall apart, always have, always will, it's in their nature. ~ Ali Smith

Even though I avoid buying clothes that are 'in fashion', choosing things I fall in love with and wearing them till they fall apart - and generally going for vintage when it comes to evening wear - I still, like every woman I know, suffer from occasional pangs of 'clothes guilt'. ~ Sheherazade Goldsmith