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Whenever I try to do anything on a typewriter, it's like having this machine between me and the words what comes out is not quite what would come out if I were scribbling.

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
Quite
Words
Comes
Scribbling
Anything
Typewriter
Come
Typewriters
Trying
Machine
Would
Whenever
Like
Machines

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As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.
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Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum... The story is our escort. Without it we are blind... It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle.
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When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it?
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No man however great is greater than his people
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Dancing is very important nowadays. No girl will look at you if you can't dance.
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When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
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What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing.
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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.
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While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.
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The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
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I don't care about age very much.
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Africa is people may seem too simple and too obvious to some of us. But I have found in the course of my travels through the world that the most simple things can still givwe us a lot of trouble, even the brightest among us: this is particularly so in matters concerning Africa.
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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.
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After a war life catches desperately at passing hints of normalcy like vines entwining a hollow twig.
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Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.
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A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
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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 old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths it is because we see something which you do not see.
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I don't like to see mistakes on the typewriter. I like a perfect script. On the typewriter I will sometimes leave a phrase that is not right, not what I want, simply because to change it would be a bit messy.
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