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Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache

Chinua Achebe

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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Control Freedom Human Religion Spirit Threat
And theories are no more than fictions which help us to make sense of experience and which are subject to disconfirmation when their explanations are no longer adequate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Experience Fiction Subject Theory
If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Children Deep Eat Hands King Value Wash
Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Art Conversation Eat Word
I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Adventure Kindness Myself Way
Women and music should not be dated.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Date Music Woman
What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens – whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Citizenship Country Ethnicity Gender
A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Carry Cure Disease Hospital
A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Himself Man Worth
As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Oneself Peace People Understand
The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Earth Existence Ideal Myself Place
As a rule I don’t like suffering to no purpose. Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Creativity Love Purpose Rule Suffering
A goat does not eat into a hen’s stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Friendship Goat Hen Stomach
If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own. If you don’t like what somebody says, say what it is you don’t like.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Expression Feeling Story Talk
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Change Learning Myself
When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Competition Coward Fight Hungry Man See

Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache

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Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache

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