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Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe Quotes

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Famous Chinua Achebe Quotes

“What really worries me is that those who are in positions of power are not really affected by what we are writing. In the moral dialogue you want to start, you really want to involve the leaders. People ask me: "Why were you so bold as to publish A Man of the People? How did you think the Government was going to take it? You didn't know there was going to be a coup?" I said rather flippantly that nobody was going to read it anyway, so I wasn't likely to be fired from my official position. It's a distressing thought that we cannot engage our leaders in the kind of moral debate we need.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMenWantNeedsWritingKindSaidGovernmentAsksLeaderMoralWorryPositionDebateDialogueAsk MeOfficialsAffectedPublishDistressingCoupsPosition Of Power
Book:Conversations with Chinua Achebe
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“"You sound as if you question the authority and the decision of the Oracle, who said he should die." "I do not. Why should I? But the Oracle did not ask me to carry out its decision." [...] "The Earth cannot punish me for obeying her mesenger," Okonkwo said. "A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm."”

IfsShouldChildrenSaidEarthMotherDiesAsksSoundDecisionPiecesAuthorityHotFingersAsk MeShould IPalmsObeyingOraclesThings Fall Apart OkonkwoYamsOkonkwo
Author:Chinua Achebe
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“"We have heard stories about white men who make the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true." [said Obierika]"There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?"”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldWaySaidEndsStoriesStrongWhitePowerfulMistakeHeardSeaLandDrinkGunSlaveWhite ManClansAbominationStrong Drink
Author:Chinua Achebe
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“Writing is like wrestling; you are wrestling with ideas and with the story. There is a lot of energy required. At the same time, it is exciting. So it is both difficult and easy. What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing. I have said in the kind of exaggerated manner of writers and prophets that writing, for me, is like receiving a term of imprisonment-you know that's what you're in for, for whatever time it takes.”

KnowsWritingKindSaidIdeasStoriesLife IsEnergyEasyDifficultTermAcceptingExcitingProphetWrestlingReceivingExaggeratedImprisonmentDifficult And Easy
Author:Chinua Achebe
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“Art is created to make us, to make our passage through the world better, fruitful - and I would say that every story in the end, if it is good, tells us something. This is actually what I meant when I said a novelist is a teacher. Which is why I am constantly dealing with "didactic". Now a teacher in the sense I use it is not somebody who has the profession of standing in front of children, with a piece of chalk in his hand scribbling on the blackboard. That is not the teacher I have in mind. The teacher I have in mind is something less tangible.”

IfsWorldMindChildrenArtSaidEndsStoriesUseHandsTeacherPiecesFrontsArt IsStandingProfessionNovelistsPassagesTangibleChalkDidacticBlackboard
Author:Chinua Achebe
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“Ogbuef Ezedudu,who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men when they came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan. "It has not always been so," he said. "My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. but after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the peace which it was meant to preserve.”

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Author:Chinua Achebe
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“The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.”

MenWorldWellsChildrenSaidMightLyingWifeHeardBabyTribesThings Fall Apart OkonkwoWomen LieOkonkwo
Book:Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism
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