When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
CHINUA ACHEBEIt has always been quite apparent to me that no important story can fail to tell us something of value to us.
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
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It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have – otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
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Every generation must find its mission and fulfill it, as Fanon said – or betray it. So it is not something that you can write up on the wall, saying this is what has to be done. Every generation has to discover what it needs to do.
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You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.
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When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
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A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.
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An angry man is always a stupid man.
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Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
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Women and music should not be dated.
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If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.
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A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.
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What a man does not know is greater than he.
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Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit — in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.
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When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.
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If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.
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The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
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What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens – whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
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One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems – where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require?
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A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
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Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.
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Nobody can teach me who I am.
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No man however great is greater than his people.
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Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.
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Charity is the opium of the privileged.
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If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.
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I 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.
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Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
CHINUA ACHEBE