Okonwko was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements.


Chinua Achebe

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