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

Chinua Achebe

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
It has always been quite apparent to me that no important story can fail to tell us something of value to us.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Apparent Important Ourselves Quite Value
Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it’s far removed from your situation.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Beginning Identify People Removal Situation Story Yourself
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Confirm Failure Head People See
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
Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Design Embrace Generation History Performance Recognition Task
When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Competition Coward Fight Hungry Man See
I am against people reaping where they have not sown. But we have a saying that if you want to eat a toad you should look for a fat and juicy one.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Eat People Talk Yourself
When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Feeling Himself Madness Man Naked Shame
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
When we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Attention Comfortable Commitment Grave Risk Run
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
Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.
CHINUA ACHEBE

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

Dance Finding Music Self Love Yourself
Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too – If one says no to the other, let his wing break.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Break Oneself Wings

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