Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe

Novelist, Poet

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist and critic, renowned for his novel 'Things Fall Apart,' which explores themes of identity and colonialism in Africa.

Men People Thinking Writing Thought Provoking Stories
Born
November 16, 1930
Quotes
300
Rank
#412

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Chinua Achebe quotes (page 14 of 15)

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Chinua Achebe Novelist, Poet
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"Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound."

Art Thinking People
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"I was a supporter of the desire, in my section of Nigeria, to leave the federation because it was treated very badly with something that was called genocide in those days."

Desire Genocide Treated
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"What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing."

Writing Life Is Accepting
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"It is not quite true to say that I am not an advocate of writing in African languages. What I think is, one has to think about what is practicable."

Writing Thinking Language
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"I think writers are not only writers, they are also citizens."

Thinking Citizens
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"Those who are talking sharia in Nigeria are really just politicians exploiting what they think is available. But if it should turn out that there are in fact whole sections of the country which believe that it is legitimate to chop off peoples hands because they stole a hen - if that should really turn out to be the genuine belief of responsible, educated people in the North than I would say there is no chance. But I do not believe that is the case. The sharia was always there but it was never force onto non-Muslims and it was not ever applied in the area of criminal law."

Country Believe Thinking
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"He who fights for a ne'er-do-well has nothing to show for it except a head covered in earth and grime."

Fighting Earth Grime
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"We know the potentiality of Nigeria and the talent and the resources and to see it having no effect on the lives of the people, on the infrastructure, the roads, the hospitals, the schools, seeing no effect of these talents, these recourses is very frustrating. But it is the result of the damage that was done to the country, especially during the various military regimes."

Country Military School
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"What has happened to Africa is very severe. We are talking about the collapse of this and the collapse of that, of good government, of the economy particularly. And this has hit education badly. The news you get from the universities in Nigeria is often appalling. I don't think a lot of it gets out. There is the obsession with cults and all kinds of dreadful things going on and all this is taking its toll and it is not surprising that quality of students and graduates who come out is not good. It will not be surprising if this shows in the quality of work they do."

Thinking Government Talking
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"Children are very fair minded, they really are."

Children Fairs
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"I think Africa is slowly learning - and painfully - that importance of insisting on responsible leadership. It will come eventually, and we may be impatient and rightly so, because it is not coming fast enough. But that is the way to go."

Thinking May Way
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"I think the language that we use in dealing with one another is very important. And even if I am called upon to bring out some money to support a regime, and I am entitled to say I do not like what that regime does and obviously I am not going to put money there - you cannot really say this is wrong or this is unreasonable."

Thinking Support Important
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"If the economy of a country collapses completely and the hospitals are no longer able to function as hospitals, it will be very difficult to tell every doctor to stay home to work without drugs, to work without equipment. You might tell some to stay but there a lot of young people who are at the beginning of their careers who would be very difficult to persuade."

Country Home Doctors
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"I am not an early-morning person; I don't like to get out of bed, and so I don't begin writing at five A.M., though some people, I hear, do. I write once my day has started. And I can work late into the night, also."

Morning Writing Night
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