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Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?

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
Carcass
Vulture
Blame

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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You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.
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A kinsman in trouble had to be saved, not blamed anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.
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When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
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Children are very fair minded, they really are.
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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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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!
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Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.
Chinua Achebe
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There must be areas in which a particular character does not represent you.
Chinua Achebe
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The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.
Chinua Achebe
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A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
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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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When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it?
Chinua Achebe
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A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.
Chinua Achebe
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I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.
Chinua Achebe
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A good leader for instance is somebody like Nelson Mandela. I do not have seen such people coming every generation, maybe every ten generations, every hundred generations. People who are miracle workers.
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It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
Chinua Achebe
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It is difficult to express the reality of Ibo society in classical English.
Chinua Achebe
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When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
Chinua Achebe
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The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.
Chinua Achebe