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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.

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
Writing
Fullness
Time
Sort
Think
Alone
Thinking
Whatever
People
Write
Left
Feel
Dialects
Feels
Dialect

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

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In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint.
Chinua Achebe
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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.
Chinua Achebe
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This is not pessimism but rather casting a cold eye on things. It is only one man's story, and I think that things will go better, but difficulties exist and nothing is served by hiding them under a poetic veil or under a lyricism of the past. I am against slogans.
Chinua Achebe
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What a man does not know is greater than he.
Chinua Achebe
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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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A chief does not hurry.
Chinua Achebe
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In such a regime, I say, you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest-without asking to be paid.
Chinua Achebe
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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.
Chinua Achebe
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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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Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane. H. P. LOVECRAFT, attributed, Telling It Like It Is Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.
Chinua Achebe
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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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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.
Chinua Achebe
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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
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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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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.
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.
Chinua Achebe
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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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When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
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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There must be areas in which a particular character does not represent you.
Chinua Achebe