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Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
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
Reality
Mouth
Giving
Handle
Mouths
Second
Gives
Literature
Word
Handed
Whether
Print
More quotes by Chinua Achebe
Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.
Chinua Achebe
What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.
Chinua Achebe
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
I'm a practised writer now. But when I began, I had no idea what this was going to be. I just knew that there was something inside me that wanted me to tell who I was, and that would have come out even if I didn't want it.
Chinua Achebe
Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft, not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor.
Chinua Achebe
Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
Chinua Achebe
When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
Chinua Achebe
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.
Chinua Achebe
I don't like to see mistakes on the typewriter. I like a perfect script. On the typewriter I will sometimes leave a phrase that is not right, not what I want, simply because to change it would be a bit messy.
Chinua Achebe
A pen on paper is the ideal way for me. I am not really very comfortable with machines I never learned to type very well.
Chinua Achebe
When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
Chinua Achebe
Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.
Chinua Achebe
That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.
Chinua Achebe
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.
Chinua Achebe
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.
Chinua Achebe
My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don’t see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity. To make humanity uncomfortable, yes. But intrinsically to be against humanity, that I don’t take.
Chinua Achebe
I was a supporter of the desire, in my section of Nigeria, to leave the federation because it was treated very badly with something that was called genocide in those days.
Chinua Achebe
I'm sure if one turned one's mind back from grandiose faults to what is happening to the average man or woman or child in the rural areas, we will probably find that's where the energy for development is.
Chinua Achebe
...Nothing puzzles God
Chinua Achebe
Once you have really done all you can, then you can show it to people. But I find this is increasingly not the case with the younger people. They do a first draft and want somebody to finish it off for them with good advice.
Chinua Achebe
