"A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?"
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Quote collection
Chinua Achebe quotes (page 10 of 15)
300 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness."
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"When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun."
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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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"It's so easy to get into the same routine. A novel every two years; perhaps, improving technique. But I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in doing something fundamentally important--and therefore, it needs time. And what I've been doing, really, is avoiding this pressure to get into the habit of one novel a year. This is what is expected of novelists. And I have never been really too much concerned with doing what is expected of novelists, or writers, or artists. I want to do what I believe is important."
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"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."
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"I think as you grow up and you see things which are around you and you ask questions and you hear the answers, your situation becomes more and more of a puzzle. Now, why is it like this, why are things like this and since writing is one way in which one can ask this questions and try to find these answers, it seems to me a very natural thing to do, especially as it meant stories which I always found moving, almost unbearably necessary."
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"The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a resonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: `The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.'"
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"The rural areas have been deprived by the cities in the past. Development resources and energy should be directed where the people live."
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"Once you have really done all you can, then you can show it to people. But I find this is increasingly not the case with the younger people. They do a first draft and want somebody to finish it off for them with good advice."
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"Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig."
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"Actually, I identify with all my characters, good and bad. I have to do that in order to make them genuine. I have to understand them even if I don't approve of them. Not completely - it's impossible; complete identification is, in fact, not desirable."
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"You don't ever want to say to a young person, You can't, or, You are no good. Some people might be able to do it, but I don't think I am a policeman for literature. So I tell them, Sweat it out, do your best."
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"Anybody who wants to rule a group will find that if this group is quarreling among themselves they leave you alone."
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"The market literature, which was particularly strong in Igboland, in Onitsha, today it is no longer strong. It is one of the victims of the civil war, that market was actually destroyed and at the end of the war a new Nigeria has struggled to come into being and I believe that what is probably going to replace the market literature might be the video, which they have taken to in a big way, creating dramas. So that may be the next thing way we will see coming out of the local basic level in our society."
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"It is difficult to express the reality of Ibo society in classical English."
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"I find Nigeria very frustrating. I am not alone in this. There are many Nigerians abroad. As you know, the brain drain is just incredible. And when we talk to one another and there is a certain sense of frustration and but I struggle not to let the frustration degenerate into dispair."
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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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"The language of young men is pull down and destroy; but an old man speaks of conciliation."
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"I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done."
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