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I'm a practised writer now. But when I began, I had no idea what this was going to be. I just knew that there was something inside me that wanted me to tell who I was, and that would have come out even if I didn't want it.

Chinua Achebe

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Chinua Achebe
Age: 82 †
Born: 1930
Born: November 16
Died: 2013
Died: March 22
Essayist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Short Story Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Albert Chinualumogu Achebe
Come
Writer
Even
Inside
Going
Knew
Something
Idea
Would
Tell
Didn
Ideas
Practised
Wanted
Began

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

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An angry man is always a stupid man.
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What is modesty but inverted pride?
Chinua Achebe
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In such a regime, I say, you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest-without asking to be paid.
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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
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You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.
Chinua Achebe
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If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.
Chinua Achebe
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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.
Chinua Achebe
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Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.
Chinua Achebe
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Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
Chinua Achebe
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Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world.
Chinua Achebe
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The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.
Chinua Achebe
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A pen on paper is the ideal way for me. I am not really very comfortable with machines I never learned to type very well.
Chinua Achebe
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Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum... The story is our escort. Without it we are blind... It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle.
Chinua Achebe
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A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
Chinua Achebe
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Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
Chinua Achebe
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I do not actually see how art, literature can be anything other that being in that domain of trying to tell us, trying to get us to see what is important in our lives.
Chinua Achebe
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Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have narrowness of heart and mind is not.
Chinua Achebe
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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
Chinua Achebe
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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
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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.
Chinua Achebe