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We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.

Chinua Achebe

Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Dance Finding Music Self Love Yourself
Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Animal Frog Known Life See Yourself
Women and music should not be dated.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Date Music Woman
Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can’t dance.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Dance Important See Yourself
Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Book Creation Different Myself People
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
I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Growth Life Old People Thinking
We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Humanity Ourselves Value
When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
CHINUA ACHEBE

Man Watch Young
The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Deep Lizard Philosophy Praise
Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am – and what I need – is something I have to find out myself.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Description Finding Myself Need Teaching
Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Greatness Imagination Man Privilege Yourself
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
Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Art Conversation Eat Word
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Audience Beginning Factor Praying Writing
The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don’t always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!
CHINUA ACHEBE

End Government Known Leadership Oneself Problem Worst
Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Moral Photograph Physical
Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit — in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Control Freedom Human Religion Spirit Threat
It 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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Direction Neighbor People Story
And theories are no more than fictions which help us to make sense of experience and which are subject to disconfirmation when their explanations are no longer adequate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Experience Fiction Subject Theory
The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Dance Singing World
Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Government Leadership Politics
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 I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Beginning Education Land Learning Myself People
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Creation History Meaning Storyteller Survival
When we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Attention Comfortable Commitment Grave Risk Run
There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Character Fear Man Nature Oneself Shout

We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.

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We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.

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Popular Authors

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