Quote

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.

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
Brave
Stand
Praiseworthy
Point
Compound
Often
Compounds
Used
Provoking
Better
Fearless
Live
Coward
Sometimes
Ruins

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A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle.
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The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.
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In such a regime, I say, you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest-without asking to be paid.
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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.
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Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig.
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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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An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb
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It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
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A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing
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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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Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane. H. P. LOVECRAFT, attributed, Telling It Like It Is Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.
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When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
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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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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.
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It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.
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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.
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When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk
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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 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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