For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism.
AMA ATA AIDOOOnce in a while I catch myself wondering whether I would have found the courage to write if I had not started to write when I was too young to know what was good for me.
More Ama Ata Aidoo Quotes
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After all, if we look closer into ourselves, shall we not admit that the warmth from other people comes so sweet to us when it comes, because, we always carry with us the knowledge of the cold loneliness of death?
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Time by itself means nothing, no matter how fast it moves, unless we give it something to carry for us; something we value. Because it is such a precious vehicle, is time.
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The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics.
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I’ve written poems about gifts.
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They had always told me that I wrote like a man.
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No matter what anybody says, we can’t have it all. Not if you are a woman. Not yet.
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At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.
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Soyinka’s Death at Dawn, Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts, Stevie Smith’s Not Waving but Drowning and Wislawa Szymborska’s Some People come to mind immediately. But there are plenty, plenty more that I enjoy.
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Once an interesting idea or theme occurs to me then I would want to write a poem about it. The rest, frankly, is not difficult.
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Sometimes a word or an argument will trigger a poem.
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Its a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.
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Ghana is like a lion without a head
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the best way to sharpen a knife is not to whet one side of it only. And neither can you solve a riddle by considering only one end of it.
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Life is inspirational; sometimes it comes from the most unlikely places.
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I always wanted to write poetry, even when I was very young.
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