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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.

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
Come
Shoot
Without
Inspired
Good
Forward
Life
Asking
Regime
Died
Murderer
Paid
Chest
Death
Regimes
Someone
Chests

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

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It has always been quite apparent to me that no important story can fail to tell us something of value to us.
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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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The language of young men is pull down and destroy but an old man speaks of conciliation.
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If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.
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When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
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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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That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.
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Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
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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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A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
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There was a saying in Umuofia that as a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.
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Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?
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When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
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The most awful thing about power is not that it corrupts absolutely but that it makes people so utterly boring, so predictable.
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It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence.The story is our escortwithout it,we are blind.Does the blind man own his escort?No,neither do we the storyrather,it is the story that owns us.
Chinua Achebe
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They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.
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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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.
Chinua Achebe
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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.
Chinua Achebe
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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.
Chinua Achebe