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Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe Quotes

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Famous Chinua Achebe Quotes

“The reality of today, different as it is from the reality of my society one hundred years ago, is and can be important if we have the energy and the inclination to challenge it, to go out and engage with its peculiarities, with the things that we do not understand. The real danger is the tendency to retreat into the obvious, the tendency to be frightened by the richness of the world and to clutch what we always have understood.”

IfsWorldYearsImportantDifferentRealRealityTodayEnergyChallengesDangerUnderstoodHundredYears AgoObviousTendenciesFrightenedRetreatInclinationRichnessClutch
Book:There Was a Country: A Memoir
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“Man is sitting disconsolate on an anthill one morning. God asks him what the matter is and man replies that the soil is too swampy for the cultivation of the yams which God has directed him to grow. God tells him to bring in a blacksmith to dry the soil with his bellows. The contribution of humanity to this creation is so important. God could have made the world perfect if he had wanted. But he made it the way it is. So that there is a constant need for us to discuss and cooperate to make it more habitable, so the soil can yield, you see.”

IfsMenWorldWayNeedsMadeImportantMatterWantedHumanityAsksGrowsPerfectMorningCreationSittingConstantMade ItDryContributionSoilYieldCultivationBlacksmithsYams
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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“In America there is really very little knowledge of the literature of the rest of the world. Of the literature of Latin America, yes, But that's not all that different in inspiration from that of America, or of Europe. One must go further. You don't even have to go too far in terms of geography - you can start with the Native Americans and listen to their poetry.”

WorldLittlesDifferentInspirationAmericaLiteratureTermEuropeNativeLatinNative AmericanGeographyLatin AmericaLittle Knowledge
Book:There Was a Country: A Memoir
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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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“For people who are coming out of an oral tradition, it is very exciting to get into reading and writing and it is quite interesting how frequently people want to write their own story. Sometimes it is straight history - this is how we came about, how our town was created, a lot of that kind of effort, as soon as literacy came. The first thing you wanted to do was to put something down about who you are or how you are related to you neighbors. Then the next stage would be the stories, the cultural part of the story: this is the kind of world our ancestors made or aspired to.”

PeopleWorldWantWritingFirstsKindMadeSometimesStoriesWould BeWantedReadingNextInterestingEffortStageTraditionExcitingTownsWho You AreNeighborRelatedComing OutAncestorLiteracyReading And WritingOur TownOral Tradition
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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“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.”

WorldWritingStoriesFeltVoiceMoralSeriousPerspectiveMajorsSittingConcernTablesAbsenceObligationDialogueMoral ObligationSerious Business
Book:There Was a Country: A Memoir
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“The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.”

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Author:Chinua Achebe
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“I believe in the complexity of the human story, and that there's no way you can tell that story in one way and say, 'this is it.' Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing ... this is the way I think the world's stories should be told: from many different perspectives.”

ThinkingWorldWayShouldBelieveHumansDifferentStoriesI BelievePerspectiveStandingI Believe InOne WayComplexityDifferent Perspective
Author:Chinua Achebe
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“Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have; narrowness of heart and mind is not.”

WorldMindHumansHeartKindRealityPlanetsDiversityEndlessCelebrateVarietyAttributesSensiblePermissionHeart And MindOur PlanetCivilityMagnificenceAbnormality
Author:Chinua Achebe
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