If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.
CHINUA ACHEBEIn fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn’t perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
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It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.
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We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
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Women and music should not be dated.
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Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
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A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.
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The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.
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A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
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It has always been quite apparent to me that no important story can fail to tell us something of value to us.
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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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A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?
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The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
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No man however great is greater than his people.
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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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Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft, not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor.
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Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.
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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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I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.
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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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A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
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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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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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There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.
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A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.
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Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
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The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
CHINUA ACHEBE