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"30 Chinua Achebe Quotes & Sayings

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Born: 16 November 1930. Died: 21 March 2013 | Novelist | Poet |

If you don't like someone's story, write your own.

Story Write Like Own
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They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.

Leaders Always Elected Habit
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Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.

Teach Nobody Who Describe
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The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.

Clever White Religion Amused
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There is that great proverb - that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

Lions History Hunt Glorify
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The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.

Learnt Experience Nothing
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I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.

People Growing Life
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Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.
Procrastination Lazy Man Apology
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When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.

Mad Naked Walks Kinsmen
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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.

Old People Sweetness Mouths
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In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.

Christianity Valuable Thing Whole
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I've had trouble now and again in Nigeria because I have spoken up about the mistreatment of factions in the country because of difference in religion. These are things we should put behind us.

Nigeria Trouble Mistreatment Religion
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The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.
World Mask Dancing Stand
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Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

Society Fullness People Create
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People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.

History About Parts Story
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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.

Purpose Art Serve Indict
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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!

Replace Careful End Always
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A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.

Democracy Educated Grounded Healthy
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An artist, in my understanding of the word, should side with the people against the Emperor that oppresses his or her people.

Against Side Artist Emperor
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Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensively.

Story Part Work History
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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.

Gender Citizens People Fair
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People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.

Neck Around Time Ankle
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Presidents do not go off on leave without telling the country.

Country Leave Without Off
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When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.

Centuries Day Enough Just
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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.

Story Far Begin Surface
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Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world.

Existing Gains Imagine Journey
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Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.

Reality Order Create Art
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Nigera is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.

Leaders Because Should Nigeria
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One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

Blunt Refusal Tests Integrity
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The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.

Repair Year Take Done
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Chinua Achebe Quotes & Sayings