When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.
CHINUA ACHEBEI don’t like to see mistakes on the typewriter. I like a perfect script. On the typewriter I will sometimes leave a phrase that is not right, not what I want, simply because to change it would be a bit messy.
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
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We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: ‘He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.’
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A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.
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I think not just Nigeria but I think the whole of Africa has to turn back to the rural areas and that’s where the majority of the citizens are and that’s where the engine of of development has to be found.
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One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
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The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don’t always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!
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When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
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Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.
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An artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.
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A goat does not eat into a hen’s stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.
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Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.
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Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
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Nobody can teach me who I am.
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If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.
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When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
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Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.
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People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them.
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The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world.
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When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
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The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
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Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
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Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.
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It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors.
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In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.
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Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.
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A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.
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Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
CHINUA ACHEBE