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When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

Chinua Achebe

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

Death Ground Library Man Old
If one finger brings oil it soils the others.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Fingering Oneself
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
People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Creation Inspirational People Story Success
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
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
One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Compromise Integrity Refusal Test True
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
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
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
The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Beginning Himself Man Pay Visit
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

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

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When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

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Popular Authors

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