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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

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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
Honest
Factor
Greatest
Craft
Quality
Crafts
Audience
Admit
Write
Factors
Writing
Praying
Motivating
Writers
Readership
Begin
Beginners

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When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.
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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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When I was in England, I had seen advertisements about typing agencies I had learned that if you really want to make a good impression, you should have your manuscript well typed.
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A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
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The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.
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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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When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate
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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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A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.
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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 white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.
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That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.
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Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
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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.
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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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We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.
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When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
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It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.
Chinua Achebe
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The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!
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.'
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