Ngugi Wa Thiong'o Quotes & Sayings

Stories, like food, lose their flavor if cooked in a hurry. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Language, any language, has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Our people think: I , Wangari, a Kenyan by birth - how can I be a vagrant in my own country as if I were a foreigner. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

For I had reached a point in my life when I came to view words differently. A closer look at language could reveal the secret of life. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

In any case how many took the oath and are now licking the toes of the whiteman?No, you take an oath to confirm a choice already made. The decision to lay or not lay your life for the people lies in the heart. The oath is the water sprinkled on a man's head at baptism — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can't buy it. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

This land used to yield. Rains used not to fail. What happened?' inquired Ruoro. It was Muturi who answered. 'You forget that in those days the land was not for buying. It was for use. It was also plenty, you need not have beaten one yard over and over again. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Your own actions are a better mirror of your life than the actions of all your enemies put together. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

with me,it is 'better never than late — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

The dynamic inter-linkage of art forms in orature is thus seen as reflecting a Weltanschauung that assumes the normality of the connection between nature, nurture, supernatural, and supernurtural. I — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

I believe that black has been oppressed by white; female by male; peasant by landlord; and worker by lord of capital. It follows from this that the black female worker and peasant is the most oppressed. She is oppressed on account of her color like all black people in the world; she is oppressed on account of her gender like all women in the world; and she is exploited and oppressed on account of her class like all workers and peasants in the world. Three burdens she has to carry. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name! — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Surely my mother could do anything to which she set her mind — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

There are some people, be they black or white, who don't want others to rise above them. They want to be the source of all knowledge and share it piecemeal to others less endowed. That is what's wrong with all these carpenters and men who have a certain knowledge. It is the same with rich people. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

The condition of women in a nation is the real measure of its progress. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

For literature, all the world is a stage. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Unshed tears of an unrequited desire for vengeance are exhausting and require privacy. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

A task is a burden only when it has not been tackled. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Our fathers fought bravely. But do you know the biggest weapon unleashed by the enemy against them? It was not the Maxim gun. It was division among them. Why? Because a people united in faith are stronger than the bomb — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

What Waringa tried hard to avoid was looking at the pictures of the walls and windows of the church. Many of the pictures showed Jesus in the arms of the virgin Mary or on the cross. But others depicted the devil, with two cow-like horns and a tail like a monkey's, raising one leg in a dance of evil, while his angels, armed with burning pitchforks, turned over human beings on a bonfire. The Virgin Mary, Jesus and God's angels were white, like European, but the devil and his angels were black. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

But when did this anger take root? When snakes first appeared on the national scene? When water in the bowels of the earth turned bitter? Or when he visited America and failed to land an interview with Global Network News on its famous program Meet the Global Mighty? It is said that when he was told that he could not be granted even a minute on the air, he could hardly believe his ears or even understand what they were talking about, knowing that in his country he was always on TV; his every moment - eating, shitting, sneezing, or blowing his nose - captured on camera. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

That was one of the most rewarding things about spending nights in the open. Birds were bound to wake you up, and whether they carried good or bad luck, at least they woke you up with music. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

The present predicaments of Africa are often not a matter of personal choice: they arise from a historical situation. Their solutions are not so much a matter of personal decision as that of a fundamental social transformation of the structures of our societies starting with a real break with imperialism and its internal ruling allies. Imperialism and its comprador alliances in Africa can never develop the continent. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

As she stared at them, Waringa noted that their skins were indeed red, like that of pigs or like the skin of a black person who has been scalded with boiling water or who has burned himself with acid creams. Even the hair in their arms and necks stood out stiff and straight like the bristle of an aging hog. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa's souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind? How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go? How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa? — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

He carried the Bible; the soldier carried the gun; the administrator and the settler carried the coin. Christianity, Commerce, Civilization: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it; those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mould it and those committed to breaking it up; those who aim to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow [ ... ] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Written words can also sing. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Prescription of the correct cure is dependent on a rigorous analysis of the reality. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe ... then let us leave the destiny of our countries to Europeans. They will know how to do it better than the most gifted among us.'25 — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

The Pan-Africanism that envisaged the ideal of wholeness was gradually cut down to the size of a continent, then a nation, a region, an ethnos, a clan, and even a village in some instances But Pan-Africanism has not outlived its mission. Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Being is one thing; becoming aware of it is a point of arrival by an awakened consciousness and this involves a journey. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o