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When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.

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
Shame
Walks
Feel
Feels
Men
Kinsmen
Mad
Naked

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When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
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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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I'm amazed when I think about students today. They know from day one what they are going to be. We didn't. We just coasted. We just knew that things would work out.
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The Novelist As Teacher”: “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.
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If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others.
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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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What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing.
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When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
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A kinsman in trouble had to be saved, not blamed anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.
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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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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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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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I am not an early-morning person I don't like to get out of bed, and so I don't begin writing at five A.M., though some people, I hear, do. I write once my day has started. And I can work late into the night, also.
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When Rimbaud became a slave trader, he stopped writing poetry.
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One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems - where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require?
Chinua Achebe
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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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A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.
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When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths it is because we see something which you do not see.
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That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.
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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.
Chinua Achebe