Its a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.
AMA ATA AIDOONo matter what anybody says, we can’t have it all. Not if you are a woman. Not yet.
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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I’ve written poems about gifts.
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Humans, not places, make memories.
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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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They had always told me that I wrote like a man.
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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 understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.
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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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Things are working out… towards their dazzling conclusions.
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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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I always wanted to write poetry, even when I was very young.
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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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O yes, everyone gets lonely some time or other.
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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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People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics.
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