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If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’ If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’ But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.

Chinua Achebe

Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Hands Literature Ourselves Reality
If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Easy Leadership Manufacture Preparation Reason Yourself
Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Dance Hurry Lame Pleasure
When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Mouth Old Ourselves People Sweet
When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Arm God Goodness Harvest Man Peace Strength
People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that’s the time to do something about it, not when it’s around your neck.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Finding Neck People Time Water Yourself
He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Brother Fools Treat Worst
When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Death Ground Library Man Old
A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Carry Cure Disease Hospital
The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Children Family Man Sex Tribe Woman World
We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: ‘He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.’
CHINUA ACHEBE

Himself Humanity Moral Practical Stay Value
I think not just Nigeria but I think the whole of Africa has to turn back to the rural areas and that’s where the majority of the citizens are and that’s where the engine of of development has to be found.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Development Finding Rural Thinking
Every generation must find its mission and fulfill it, as Fanon said – or betray it. So it is not something that you can write up on the wall, saying this is what has to be done. Every generation has to discover what it needs to do.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Discover Finding Fulfill Generation Mission Need
When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Brother Death Fight Profit Stranger
As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Oneself Peace People Understand
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Man Prosperity Rule Woman

If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’ If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’ But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.

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If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’ If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’ But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.

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Popular Authors

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