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 ACHEBEIt is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors.
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
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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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Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.
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There is that great proverb – that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
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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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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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The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
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People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them.
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Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
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The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world.
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A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.
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There is no story that is not true.
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Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.
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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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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.
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Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
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Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft, not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor.
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It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.
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In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.
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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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When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
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The language of young men is pull down and destroy; but an old man speaks of conciliation.
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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
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While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.
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It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have – otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
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As a rule I don’t like suffering to no purpose. Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely.
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If one finger brings oil it soils the others.
CHINUA ACHEBE