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.
AMA ATA AIDOOIts a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.
More Ama Ata Aidoo Quotes
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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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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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I’ve written poems about gifts.
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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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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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Time by itself means nothing, no matter how fast it moves, unless we give it something to carry for us; something we value. Because it is such a precious vehicle, is time.
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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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Life is inspirational; sometimes it comes from the most unlikely places.
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O yes, everyone gets lonely some time or other.
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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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Humans, not places, make memories.
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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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