Quote

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

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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
Men
Woman
Belong
World
Making
Large
Cannot
Lies
Wells
Baby
Might
Wife
Well
Heard
Children
Lying
Tribes
Even
Family
Babies

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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
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The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.
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Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.
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Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?
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What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
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Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
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In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.
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There must be areas in which a particular character does not represent you.
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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.
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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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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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What is modesty but inverted pride?
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While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.
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After a war life catches desperately at passing hints of normalcy like vines entwining a hollow twig.
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An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb
Chinua Achebe
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I don't praise my people. I am their greatest critic.
Chinua Achebe
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Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
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You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.
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My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don’t see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity. To make humanity uncomfortable, yes. But intrinsically to be against humanity, that I don’t take.
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It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.
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