Quote

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

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
Among
Proverbs
Words
Palm
Art
Eaten
Palms
Regarded
Highly
Oil
Conversation
Igbo

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The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.
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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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Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.
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A chief does not hurry.
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Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
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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.
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Presidents do not go off on leave without telling the country.
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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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...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
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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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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.
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The writer is often faced with two choices--turn away from the reality of life's intimidating complexity or conquer its mystery by battling with it. The writer who chooses the former soon runs out of energy and produces elegantly tired fiction.
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There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me it would be wasteful for me to add to that huge number of people writing here when there are so few people writing about somewhere else.
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Poetry and slave trading cannot be bedfellows. That's where I stand.
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The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.
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Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities
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Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.
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Mosquito [...] had asked Ear to marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. How much longer do you think you will live? she asked. You are already a skeleton. Mosquito went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still alive.
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I don't care about age very much.
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[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?
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