Amos Tutuola > Quotes

“[Death] was not at home by that time, he was in his yam garden.”
― Amos Tutuola, The Palm-Wine Drinkard

“I was a palm-wine drinkard since I was a boy of ten years of age. I had no other work more than to drink palm-wine in my life. - - - But when my father noticed that I could not do any work more than to drink, he engaged an expert palm-wine-tapster for me; he had no other work more than to tap palm-wine every day. So my father gave me a palm-tree farm which was nine miles square and it contained 560,000 palm-trees, and this palm-wine tapster was tapping one hundred and fifty kegs of palm-wine every morning, but before 2 o’clock p.m., I would have drunk it all; after that he would go and tap another 75 kegs.”
― Tutuola A., The Palm-Wine Drinkard

“We had sold our death to somebody at the door for the sum of £70:18:6d and lent our fear to somebody at the door as well on interest of £3:10:0d per month, so we did not care about death and we did not fear again.”
― Amos Tutuola

“But when the fire was about to quench, their children came with whips and stones then they began to whip and stone our heads; when they left that, they began to climb on our heads and jump from one to the second; after that they started to spit, make urine and pass excreta on our heads; but when the eagle saw that they wanted to nail our heads, then it drove all of them away from the field with its beak.”
― Amos Tutuola, The Palm-Wine Drinkard

“When we traveled for two and half days, we reached the Deads' road from which dead babies drove us, and when we reached there, we could not travel on it because of fearful dead babies, etc. which were still on it.”
― Amos Tutuola

“The hawk plays with the pigeon and the pigeon is happy, but not knowing that it is playing with death.”
― Amos Tutuola, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty

“I had forgotten that things might change in future and that promise was a debt.”
― Amos Tutuola, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty

“If we continue to pay "bad" for "bad", bad will never finish on earth.”
― Amos Tutuola, The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories

“Then, frighteningly, he said, 'But as you are a man, how are you going to deliver your pregnancy? This is a big problem for you.”
― Amos Tutuola, The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories

“A cruel man cannot change another man's destiny.”
― Amos Tutuola, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty

“Having left this village to a distance of a mile this ghost magician came to me on the way, he asked me to let both of us share the gifts, but when i refused he changed to a poisonous snake, he wanted to bite me to death, so I myself used my magical power and changed to a long stick at the same moment and started to beat him repeatedly. When he felt much pain and near to die, then he changed from the snake to a great fire and burnt this stick to ashes, after that he started to burn me too. Without hesitation I myself changed to rain, so I quenched him at once.”
― Amos Tutuola, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

“Truths are failed to sell in the market but lies are purchased with high price without pricing it.”
― Amos Tutuola, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty

“There is no chance for other matter in the stomach of a hungry person.”
― Amos Tutuola, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty

“A tormentor forces his victims to be hardy.”
― Amos Tutuola, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty

“A tortoise's shell is a house of the poverty and if the tortoise is taken to the wealthy town, it will still be living in its house of poverty.”
― Amos Tutuola, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty

“The rope of the truth is thin but there is nobody who can cut it; the rope of lie is thick as a large pillar but it can be cut easily into a thousand pieces.”
― Amos Tutuola, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty