FastSaying

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.


Chinua Achebe

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The universe may for...
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JIDENNA All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,

Stitch life down fo...
EDITH SITWELL They are also skilled in the art of conversation,
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As we wave our goodbyes,
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which t...
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QUEEN ELIZABETH II To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ...
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QUEEN ELIZABETH II I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an...
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More Chinua Achebe

Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I...
CHINUA ACHEBE A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
CHINUA ACHEBE The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
CHINUA ACHEBE When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we se...
CHINUA ACHEBE What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnic...
CHINUA ACHEBE One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
CHINUA ACHEBE Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their inter...
CHINUA ACHEBE I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the empe...
CHINUA ACHEBE I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life...
CHINUA ACHEBE Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when ...
CHINUA ACHEBE The most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I ob...
CHINUA ACHEBE Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself...
CHINUA ACHEBE People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.
CHINUA ACHEBE Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
CHINUA ACHEBE While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity...
CHINUA ACHEBE Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages...
CHINUA ACHEBE Okonwko was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid pers...
CHINUA ACHEBE No man can deny that Chief the Honourable M.A. Nanga, M.P. was the most approachable politician in ...
CHINUA ACHEBE Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself...
CHINUA ACHEBE People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about...
CHINUA ACHEBE I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next do...
CHINUA ACHEBE I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas ...
CHINUA ACHEBE But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic id...
CHINUA ACHEBE Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which ...
CHINUA ACHEBE The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature th...
CHINUA ACHEBE A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educ...
CHINUA ACHEBE The people you see in Nigeria today have always lived as neighbors in the same space for as long as ...
CHINUA ACHEBE The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this grea...
CHINUA ACHEBE When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry b...
CHINUA ACHEBE When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one ...
CHINUA ACHEBE The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.
CHINUA ACHEBE In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a w...
CHINUA ACHEBE Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These ...
CHINUA ACHEBE I was a supporter of the desire, in my section of Nigeria, to leave the federation because it was tr...
CHINUA ACHEBE The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at ...
CHINUA ACHEBE When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated ...
CHINUA ACHEBE It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.
CHINUA ACHEBE The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this grea...
CHINUA ACHEBE What's important is that we recognize the falsehood of the notion that the Third World should be aba...
CHINUA ACHEBE People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what i...
CHINUA ACHEBE Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagi...
CHINUA ACHEBE Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and sta...
CHINUA ACHEBE They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have n...
CHINUA ACHEBE People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.
CHINUA ACHEBE My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; m...
CHINUA ACHEBE People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them ...
CHINUA ACHEBE Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fu...
CHINUA ACHEBE If you don't like someone's story, write your own.
CHINUA ACHEBE I've had trouble now and again in Nigeria because I have spoken up about the mistreatment of fac...
CHINUA ACHEBE My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indi...
CHINUA ACHEBE When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other la...
CHINUA ACHEBE Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensiv...
CHINUA ACHEBE The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.
CHINUA ACHEBE There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me i...
CHINUA ACHEBE An artist, in my understanding of the word, should side with the people against the Emperor that opp...
CHINUA ACHEBE Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is g...
CHINUA ACHEBE Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not d...
CHINUA ACHEBE In such a regime, I say you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and ...
CHINUA ACHEBE In such a regime, I say you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and ...
CHINUA ACHEBE And so Mr. Brown came to be respected even by the clan, because he trod softly on its faith.
CHINUA ACHEBE Ife onye metalu' ['what a man commits'] - a statement unclear and menacing in its very inconclusiven...
CHINUA ACHEBE In the vocabulary of certain radical theorists contradictions are given the status of some deadly di...
CHINUA ACHEBE ...she was sensitive enough and intelligent enough to understand, and her literary education could n...
CHINUA ACHEBE It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is...
CHINUA ACHEBE Charity … is the opium of the privileged; from the good citizen who habitually drops ten kobo from...
CHINUA ACHEBE It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of ...
CHINUA ACHEBE Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.
CHINUA ACHEBE Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
CHINUA ACHEBE Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the rig...
CHINUA ACHEBE Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.
CHINUA ACHEBE At the most one could say that his chi or ... personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a prove...
CHINUA ACHEBE If you don't like my story,write your own
CHINUA ACHEBE Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the...
CHINUA ACHEBE Then listen to me,' he said and cleared his throat. 'It's true that a child belongs to its father. B...
CHINUA ACHEBE The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his...
CHINUA ACHEBE Presidents do not go off on leave without telling the country.
CHINUA ACHEBE The relationship with my people, the Nigerian people, is very good. My relationship with the rulers ...
CHINUA ACHEBE I don't care about age very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, a...
CHINUA ACHEBE If you had been poor in your last life I would have asked you to be rich when you come again. But yo...
CHINUA ACHEBE A snake was never called by its name at night, because it would hear. It was called a string.
CHINUA ACHEBE Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are i...
CHINUA ACHEBE I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door w...
CHINUA ACHEBE I don't care about age very much.
CHINUA ACHEBE Nigera is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.
CHINUA ACHEBE I'm a practised writer now. But when I began, I had no idea what this was going to be. I just kn...
CHINUA ACHEBE A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food...
CHINUA ACHEBE