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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

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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
Pleasures
Main
Dance
Antelope
Pleasure
Antelopes
Young
Danced
Come
Lame
Like
Hurry
World
Rush

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Beware Okonkwo! she warned. Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!
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There must be areas in which a particular character does not represent you.
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When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun.
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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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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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Presidents do not go off on leave without telling the country.
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The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.
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The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
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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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If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings.
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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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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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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.
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No man however great is greater than his people
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In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint.
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Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation.
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One would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.
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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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The language of young men is pull down and destroy but an old man speaks of conciliation.
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