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The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.

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
Shining
Sun
Stand
Kneel
Shines
Shine

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

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When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
Chinua Achebe
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There must be areas in which a particular character does not represent you.
Chinua Achebe
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He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.
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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Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.
Chinua Achebe
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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
Chinua Achebe
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I think dialects should be left alone. People should write in whatever dialect they feel they want to write. In the fullness of time, these dialects will sort themselves out.
Chinua Achebe
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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
Chinua Achebe
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One would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.
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.
Chinua Achebe
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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.
Chinua Achebe
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I am against people reaping where they have not sown. But we have a saying that if you want to eat a toad you should look for a fat and juicy one.
Chinua Achebe
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No man however great is greater than his people
Chinua Achebe
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I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.
Chinua Achebe
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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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I'm very primitive I write with a pen.
Chinua Achebe
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When a new saying gets to the land of empty men, they lose their heads over it.
Chinua Achebe
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Children are young, but they're not naive. And they're honest. They're not going to keep wide awake if the story is boring. When they get excited you can see it in their eyes.
Chinua Achebe
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Actually, I identify with all my characters, good and bad. I have to do that in order to make them genuine. I have to understand them even if I don't approve of them. Not completely - it's impossible complete identification is, in fact, not desirable.
Chinua Achebe
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Africa is people may seem too simple and too obvious to some of us. But I have found in the course of my travels through the world that the most simple things can still givwe us a lot of trouble, even the brightest among us: this is particularly so in matters concerning Africa.
Chinua Achebe