Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too – If one says no to the other, let his wing break.
CHINUA ACHEBEEach of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
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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.
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When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
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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 one finger brings oil it soils the others.
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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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A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.
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If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.
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Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum… The story is our escort. Without it we are blind… It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle.
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What a man does not know is greater than he.
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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.
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The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.
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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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Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
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When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
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Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.
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Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
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When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
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An angry man is always a stupid man.
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No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.
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If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings.
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There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.
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There is no story that is not true.
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Nobody can teach me who I am.
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The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use.
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Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.
CHINUA ACHEBE