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It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.

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
Surprised
Despair
Later
Thought
Always
Sink
Load

More quotes by 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.
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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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I'm very primitive I write with a pen.
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There is no story that is not true, [...] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.
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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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We live in a sea of general ideas, so that's not a novel, since there are so many general ideas. But the moment a particular idea is linked to a character, it's like an engine moves it. Then you have a novel underway.
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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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The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
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Whenever I try to do anything on a typewriter, it's like having this machine between me and the words what comes out is not quite what would come out if I were scribbling.
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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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There must be areas in which a particular character does not represent you.
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[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?
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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.
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What is modesty but inverted pride?
Chinua Achebe
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As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.
Chinua Achebe
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Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked.
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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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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.
Chinua Achebe
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I don't care about age very much.
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When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun.
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