Chigozie Obioma Quotes & Sayings

He mostly told me stories at night-time, in the near darkness of the room, and I gradually burrowed into the world his words created. — Chigozie Obioma

The prophecy, like an angered beast, had gone berserk and was destroying his mind with the ferocity of madness . . . until all that he knew, all that was him, all that had become him was left in disarray. To my brother, Ikenna, the fear of death as prophesied by Abulu had become palpable, a caged world within which he was irretrievably trapped, and beyond which nothing else existed. — Chigozie Obioma

I'd heard someone say that the end of most things often bears a resemblance - even if faint - to their beginnings — Chigozie Obioma

But it was abundant in Canada like leaves in a forest. — Chigozie Obioma

Mother vanished for many days. She was, as I would find out later, in a psychiatric hospital, tucked away as if she were a dangerous explosive material. There had been a cataclysmic explosion of her mind, and her perception of the known world had been blasted into smithereens.Her senses became imbued with extraordinary sensitivity so that to her ears the sound of the clock in her ward
became noisier than the din of a drilling machine. The sound of a
rat came to her as the peal of many bells. — Chigozie Obioma

Do you not know that there is nothing the eye can see that can make it shed the tears of blood? Do you not know that there is no loss we cannot overcome? — Chigozie Obioma

Ikenna was a fragile, delicate bird; he was a sparrow. Little things could unbridle his soul. Wistful thoughts often combed his melancholic spirit in search of craters to be filled with sorrow. — Chigozie Obioma

He spoke slowly, his voice deeper and louder, every word tacked nine inches deep into the beams of our minds. — Chigozie Obioma

Even his voice had accrued a certain rancour as though the detritus of words long left unsaid inside the cave of his mouth had become rusty and scattered in tiny bits on the top of his tongue whenever he opened his mouth to speak. — Chigozie Obioma

But we could not, for if one attempted to look into the future one would see nothing; it was like peeping into a person's earhole. — Chigozie Obioma

He was seated alone on a lounge chair in the sitting room, his face veiled with a copy of his favourite newspaper, the Guardian, half reading and half listening to Mother. — Chigozie Obioma

The things my brother read shaped him; they became his visions. He believed in them. I have now come to know that what one believes often becomes permanent, and what becomes permanent can be indestructible. This was the case with my brother. — Chigozie Obioma

I believe that fiction with its untrammelled nature, speaks to no one, and by so doing, speaks to all. — Chigozie Obioma

Although Christianity had almost cleanly swept through Igbo land, crumbs and pieces of the African traditional religion had eluded the broom. — Chigozie Obioma

That story, as all good stories, planted a seed in my soul and never left me. — Chigozie Obioma

Everything followed its natural course. We gave little thought to past events. Time meant nothing back then. The days came with clouds hanging in the sky filled with cupfuls of dust in the dry seasons, and the sun lasting into the night. It was as if a hand drew hazy pictures in the sky during the rainy seasons, when rain fell in deluges pulsating with spasms of thunderstorms for six uninterrupted months. Because things followed this known and structured pattern, no day was worthy of remembrance. All that mattered was the present and the foreseeable future. — Chigozie Obioma

I'd once been told that if a man wanted something he did not have, no matter how elusive that thing was, if his feet do not restrain him from chasing it, he would eventually grab it. This was our case. — Chigozie Obioma

Listen, days decay, like food, like fish,
like dead bodies. This night will decay, too and you will forget. Listen, we will forget. — Chigozie Obioma

Hatred is a leech: The thing that sticks to a person's skin; that feeds off them and drains the sap out of one's spirit. It changes a person, and does not leave until it has sucked the last drop of peace from them. — Chigozie Obioma

when the two ventricles of our home - our father and our mother - held silence as the ventricles of the heart retain blood, we could flood the house if we poked them. — Chigozie Obioma

I once heard that when fear takes possession of the heart of a person, it diminishes them — Chigozie Obioma

Mother was a falconer. The one who stood on the hills and watched, trying to stave off whatever ill she perceived was coming to her children. She owned copies of our minds in the pockets of her own mind and so could easily sniff troubles early in their forming, the same way sailors discern the forming foetus of a coming storm. — Chigozie Obioma

As I watched the men throw more earth into the grave, I dug into the cold soil of my own mind, and it became suddenly clear - the way things always become clearer only after they have happened - that Ikenna was a fragile delicate bird; he was a sparrow. Little things could unbridle his soul. Wistful thoughts often combed his melancholic spirit in search of craters to be filled with sorrow. As a younger boy, he often sat in the backyard, brooding and contemplative, his arms clasped over his knees. He was highly critical of things, a part of him that greatly resembled Father. He nailed small things to big crosses and would ponder for long on a wrong word he said to someone; he greatly dreaded the reprove of others. He had no place for ironies or satires; they troubled him. — Chigozie Obioma

English, although the official language of Nigeria, was a formal language with which strangers and non-relatives addressed you. It had the potency of digging craters between you and your friends or relatives if one of you switched to using it. So, our parents hardly spoke English, except in moments like this, when the words were intended to pull the ground from beneath our feet. — Chigozie Obioma

All we did for the rest of that evening was sing, the dying sun pitched in a corner of the sky as faint as a nipple on the chest of a teenage girl a distance away. — Chigozie Obioma

I have now come to know that what one believes often becomes permanent, and what become permanent can be indestructible. — Chigozie Obioma