No Longer at Ease

No Longer at Ease (1960) is a novel by Chinua Achebe that tells the story of an Igbo man, Obi Okonkwo, who leaves his village for an education in Britain and then a job in the Nigerian colonial civil service, but is conflicted between his African culture and Western lifestyle and ends up taking a bribe. The novel is the second work in what is sometimes referred to as the "African trilogy", following Things Fall Apart and preceding Arrow of God, though Arrow of God chronologically precedes it in the chronology of the trilogy. Things Fall Apart concerns the struggle of Obi Okonkwo's grandfather Okonkwo against the changes brought by the British.

Quotes

 * hopelessly forever. Conventional tragedy is too easy. The hero dies and we feel a purging of the emotions. A real tragedy takes place in a corner, in an untidy spot, to quote W. H. Auden.
 * Chapter 5,page 43–44
 * You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree — the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.
 * Chapter 5,page 57
 * If one finger brings oil it soils the others.
 * Chapter 7,page 75
 * A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.
 * Chapter 9, page 87
 * When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun.
 * Chapter 10,page 95
 * That was Obi’s mistake Number One. Everybody expected a young man from England to be impressively turned-out
 * Page 36
 * Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly forever. Conventional tragedy is too easy. The hero dies and we feel a purging of the emotions. A real tragedy takes place in a corner, in an untidy spot, to quote W.H. Auden
 * Page 47
 * Greatness is now in the things of the white man
 * Page 62
 * In that short question he said in effect that Obi’s mission-house upbringing and European education had made him a stranger in his country –the most painful thing one could say to Obi
 * Page 82
 * It was clear he loved Africa, but only Africa of a kind: the Africa of Charles, the messenger, the Africa of his gardenboy and steward boy. He must have come originally with an ideal –to bring light into the heart of darkness
 * Page 121
 * Mr. Okonkwo believed utterly and completely in the things of the white man. And the symbol of white man’s power was the written word, or better still, the printed word
 * Page 144
 * Everybody wondered why. The learned judge, as we have seen, could not comprehend how an educated young man and so on and so forth
 * Page 194
 * Empty men who become white when they see white, and black when they see black.
 * Page 61
 * ...had no language of one's own.
 * Page 57
 * We are sending you to learn book. Enjoyment can wait. Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world
 * Page 13
 * Substantial presents in a village where money was so rare, where men and women toiled from year to year to wrest a meager living from an unwilling and exhausted soil
 * Page 13