There are powerful forces undermining progress in Africa. But one must never underestimate the power of the people to bring about change.
AMA ATA AIDOOSoyinka’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.
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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No matter what anybody says, we can’t have it all. Not if you are a woman. Not yet.
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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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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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O yes, everyone gets lonely some time or other.
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Toyin Falola has given us what is truly rare in modern African writing: a seriously funny, racy, irreverent package of memories, and full of the most wonderful pieces of poetry and ordinary information.
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Ghana is like a lion without a head
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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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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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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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Sometimes a word or an argument will trigger a poem.
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It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.
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People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics.
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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.
AMA ATA AIDOO