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I am not an early-morning person I don't like to get out of bed, and so I don't begin writing at five A.M., though some people, I hear, do. I write once my day has started. And I can work late into the night, also.

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
Night
Early
Also
Late
Persons
Started
Person
Hear
Writing
Morning
Work
Five
Like
Though
Bed
People
Write
Begin

More quotes by 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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I do not actually see how art, literature can be anything other that being in that domain of trying to tell us, trying to get us to see what is important in our lives.
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It is difficult to express the reality of Ibo society in classical English.
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...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
Chinua Achebe
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We live in a sea of general ideas, so that's not a novel, since there are so many general ideas. But the moment a particular idea is linked to a character, it's like an engine moves it. Then you have a novel underway.
Chinua Achebe
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Beware Okonkwo! she warned. Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!
Chinua Achebe
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A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing
Chinua Achebe
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When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
Chinua Achebe
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When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk
Chinua Achebe
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When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.
Chinua Achebe
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What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
Chinua Achebe
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An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb
Chinua Achebe
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When Rimbaud became a slave trader, he stopped writing poetry.
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.'
Chinua Achebe
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I'm amazed when I think about students today. They know from day one what they are going to be. We didn't. We just coasted. We just knew that things would work out.
Chinua Achebe
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There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me it would be wasteful for me to add to that huge number of people writing here when there are so few people writing about somewhere else.
Chinua Achebe
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A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle.
Chinua Achebe
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The language of young men is pull down and destroy but an old man speaks of conciliation.
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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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