Allison Heavens

“Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.”
― Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

“Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.”
― Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

“It is better to grope in the dark and wade through a million errors to reach the Truth than to entrust oneself to someone who knows not that he knows not. Has a man ever learnt swimming by tying a stone to his neck? So let me go my own way even if it is the wrong one.”
― Sudhir Kakar, The Seeker

“People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.”
― Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra