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Chinua Achebe Quotes
Chinua Achebe Quotes
Chinua Achebe
Nigerian
Writer
Born:
Nov 16
,
1930
Died:
Mar 21
,
2013
Life
Me
Old
People
World
You
Related authors:
Ayn Rand
Dr. Seuss
H. L. Mencken
Napoleon Hill
Niccolo Machiavelli
Thomas Mann
Thomas Paine
Voltaire
When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.
Chinua Achebe
You
Suffering
Own
Worry
Say
Tells
Brought
He
Knocks
Him
Because
His
Stool
Door
Your
Seat
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
Government
You
Problem
Other
Worse
Bad
Bad Government
Could
Taking
Over
Know
Always
End
Replace
Get
The Problem With
Much
Careful
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.
Chinua Achebe
Time
You
People
Water
Say
Find
People Say
About
Something
Rising
Ankle
Around
Up
Your
Neck
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.
Chinua Achebe
You
People
Words
Speak
Old
Our
See
Something
Because
Mouths
Which
Old People
Sweetness
A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.
Chinua Achebe
Leadership
Democracy
Healthy
Morally
Participatory
Robust
Educated
Requires
Grounded
The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.
Chinua Achebe
Light
Hundred
Hundred Years
Bad
Had
Contact
Terms
Trade
Years
Very
Five
Africa
African
Literature
Justify
Produced
Body
Reason
European
Four
Last
Slave
Slavery
Presented
Need
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.
Chinua Achebe
Good
Religion
Valuable
Thought
Christianity
Valuable Thing
Out
About
Something
Fact
Feel
Perhaps
Left
Began
Very
In Fact
After
Story
While
Us
Whole
Thing
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. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.
Chinua Achebe
Great
You
Yourself
People
Try
Situation
Once
Tell
See
Allow
Students
Great Thing
Identify
Make
Surface
Begin
Situations
Story
Literature
Might
Far
Far Away
Then
Us
Your
Even
Away
Thing
When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendered. And it was the women who led the first revolt.
Chinua Achebe
Women
Men
First
Beginning
Battles
Administration
Instance
Came
Led
Up
Revolt
Different
Places
Land
Century
Different Places
Who
Defeated
British
Set
What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
Chinua Achebe
Needs
People
Gender
Country
Citizens
Fair
Different
Whether
Ethnicity
The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
Chinua Achebe
Sometimes
Year
Ten
Take
Repair
Years
Done
Twenty
Damage
A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
Chinua Achebe
Man
Trouble
Others
Also
Himself
Makes
Making
Who
I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.
Chinua Achebe
Food
You
Yourself
Somebody
Difficult
Tell
Kind
See
Eats
Someone
More
Color
Students
Performing
Like
Identify
Looks
Very
Begin
Wonders
Different
Door
Literature
Different Color
Different Kind
Far
Far Away
Then
Really
Next
Next Door
Who
Away
The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this great diversity - that it's this or maybe that - you have just one large statement; it is this.
Chinua Achebe
Great
You
Problem
Diversity
Statement
Through
Simplify
Instead
Idea
Stereotype
Going
Maybe
Just
Just One
Large
Whole
When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.
Chinua Achebe
Day
Strength
You
Enough
One Day
Tradition
Go
Off
Just
Centuries
Turn
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
You
Yourself
People
Situation
Once
See
Allow
Identify
Surface
Begin
Story
Might
Far
Then
Your
Even
Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again. We have to begin to learn to rule ourselves again.
Chinua Achebe
Democracy
You
Wake Up
Year
Rule
Ourselves
Something
Ten
Ten Years
Put
Learn
Practicing
Years
Wake
Up
Begin
Again
Then
Away
Start
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.
Chinua Achebe
Art
Good
Humanity
See
Purpose
Always
How
Existed
Frustrate
Good Art
Help
Serious
Serve
Position
The most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.
Chinua Achebe
Life
Myself
World
My Life
Important
Changes
Has-Been
See
Seeing
About
Observe
Like
Most
Fellow
Most Important Thing
Important Thing
Been
Expect
Just
The Most Important
Room
Next
Full
Who
Therefore
Lives
Thing
Nigera is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.
Chinua Achebe
Leaders
Because
Should
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.
Chinua Achebe
Best
You
Election
Free
Long
Lose
Free Election
Facility
Habit
Tend
Long Period
Leaders
Particularly
Period
Always
After
Which
Elected
Used
Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.
Chinua Achebe
Art
Man
Reality
Constant
Given
Him
Himself
Effort
Different
Order
Which
Create
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.
Chinua Achebe
Journey
People
World
Made
Whatever
Thorough
Consolidating
Purpose
Leaders
Existing
Stories
Gains
Serve
Imagine
Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room.
Chinua Achebe
Life
Myself
World
My Life
Important
Changes
Has-Been
See
Seeing
About
Observe
Like
Most
Fellow
Most Important Thing
Important Thing
Been
Expect
Oh
Just
The Most Important
Room
Next
Full
Who
Therefore
Lives
Thing
I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may be wrongheaded, but his heart was always on the right side. He wrote beautiful poetry.
Chinua Achebe
Love
Beautiful
Me
Heart
Passion
Language
Poet
Wild
Side
Chaotic
Right Side
Right Thing
Seemed
Poetry
He
Ideas
Liked
Wrote
Always
His
May
Just
Loved
The Right Thing
Really
Right
Thing
Flow
I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects. That's different from prescribing a way in which a writer should write.
Chinua Achebe
Word
Think
Sides
Way
Definition
Would
Someone
Write
Writer
Takes
Emperor
Powerless
His
Subjects
Artist
Different
Which
Against
Should
Who
Prescribing
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