Things are working out… towards their dazzling conclusions.
AMA ATA AIDOOThere are powerful forces undermining progress in Africa. But one must never underestimate the power of the people to bring about change.
More Ama Ata Aidoo Quotes
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Life is inspirational; sometimes it comes from the most unlikely places.
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It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.
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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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Love is fine for singing about and love songs are good to listen to, sometimes even to dance to. But when we need food for our stomachs and clothes for our backs, love is nothing. Ah my lady, the last man any woman should think of marrying is the man she loves.
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Once 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.
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For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism.
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Ghana is like a lion without a head
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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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Sometimes a word or an argument will trigger a poem.
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It is a matter of some interest, that the only other volume A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt reminds one of is Ake, by Wole Soyinka. What is it about these Yorubas?
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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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People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics.
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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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Humans, not places, make memories.
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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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