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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.

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
Brought
Wrath
Land
Goddess
Loosed
Others
Finger
Soiled
Great
Offense
Offender
Exact
Clan
Oil
Clans
Punishment
Offenders
Fingers
Elders

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Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.
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I am against people reaping where they have not sown. But we have a saying that if you want to eat a toad you should look for a fat and juicy one.
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In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint.
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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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A chief does not hurry.
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The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.
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Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.
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What is modesty but inverted pride?
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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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Unless I'm writing in the Igbo language, I use a language developed elsewhere, which is English. That affects the way I write. It even affects to some extent the stories I write.
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I'm very primitive I write with a pen.
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Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.
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One would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.
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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.
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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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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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