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Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

Chinua Achebe

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
Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Carry Himself Man Wisdom
A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Debt Decay
When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Door Hard Time Himself Knock Suffering Worry
One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Compromise Integrity Refusal Test True
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
Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Thinking Work Yourself
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
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

Foot Hands Hold Myself Pretend
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
We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Break Hurt Man Neck Seek
Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
CHINUA ACHEBE

Animal Lying Philosophy
When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Death Ground Library Man Old
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
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
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

Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

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Popular Authors

Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Chinua Achebe Quotes