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There was a saying in Umuofia that as a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.

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
Saying
Men
Danced
Drums
Beaten

More quotes by 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.
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Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
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An angry man is always a stupid man.
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I don't praise my people. I am their greatest critic.
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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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Anybody who wants to rule a group will find that if this group is quarreling among themselves they leave you alone.
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.
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The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
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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 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.
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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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A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.
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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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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
Chinua Achebe
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A chief does not hurry.
Chinua Achebe
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Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.
Chinua Achebe
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When Rimbaud became a slave trader, he stopped writing poetry.
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I think the language that we use in dealing with one another is very important. And even if I am called upon to bring out some money to support a regime, and I am entitled to say I do not like what that regime does and obviously I am not going to put money there - you cannot really say this is wrong or this is unreasonable.
Chinua Achebe
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We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.'
Chinua Achebe
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But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may be wrongheaded, but his heart was always on the right side. He wrote beautiful poetry.
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