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The People You See In Nigeria Today Have Always Lived As Neighbors In The Same Space For As Long As We Can Remember. So It's A Matter Of Settling Down, Lowering The Rhetoric, The Level Of Hostility In The Rhetoric Is Too High.

-Chinua Achebe

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The People You See

Chinua Achebe

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The People You See In Nigeria Today Have Always Lived As Neighbors In The Same Space For As Long As We Can Remember. So It's A Matter Of Settling Down, Lowering The Rhetoric, The Level Of Hostility In The Rhetoric Is Too High.

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I Find Nigeria Very Frustrating. I Am Not Alone In This. There Are Many Nigerians Abroad. As You Know, The Brain Drain Is Just Incredible. And When We Talk To One Another And There Is A Certain Sense Of Frustration And But I Struggle Not To Let The Frustration Degenerate Into Dispair.

I Don't Praise My People. I Am Their Greatest Critic.

Nigeria Is What It Is Because Its Leaders Are Not What They Should Be.

Nigeria Independence

The Women Are, Of Course, The Biggest Single Group Of Oppressed People In The World And, If We Are To Believe The Book Of Genesis, The Very Oldest.

As A Rule I Don't Like Suffering To No Purpose. Suffering Should Be Creative, Should Give Birth To Something Good And Lovely.

I Do Not Actually See How Art, Literature Can Be Anything Other That Being In That Domain Of Trying To Tell Us, Trying To Get Us To See What Is Important In Our Lives.

Almost Nobody Dances Sober, Unless They Happen To Be Insane. H. P. Lovecraft, Attributed, Telling It Like It Is Dancing Is Very Important Nowadays. No Girl Will Look At You If You Can't Dance.

Those Whose Kernels Were Cracked By Benevolent Spirit Should Not Forget To Be Humble.

I'm Sure If One Turned One's Mind Back From Grandiose Faults To What Is Happening To The Average Man Or Woman Or Child In The Rural Areas, We Will Probably Find That's Where The Energy For Development Is.

What Is Modesty But Inverted Pride?

When There Is A Big Tree Small Ones Climb On Its Back To Reach The Sun.

The Damage Done In One Year Can Sometimes Take Ten Or Twenty Years To Repair.

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When I Began Going To School And Learned To Read, I Encountered Stories Of Other People And Other Lands.

A Budding Writer Wants To Be Encouraged.

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.

The Most Awful Thing About Power Is Not That It Corrupts Absolutely But That It Makes People So Utterly Boring, So Predictable.

A Chief Does Not Hurry.

Travellers With Closed Minds Can Tell Us Little Except About Themselves

Privilege, You See, Is One Of The Great Adversaries Of The Imagination; It Spreads A Thick Layer Of Adipose Tissue Over Our Sensitivity.

A Boy Sent By His Father To Steal Does Not Go Stealthily But Breaks The Door With His Feet.

A Man Who Makes Trouble For Others Is Also Making Trouble For Himself.

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I Have Found That I Work Best When I Am At Home In Nigeria. But One Learns To Work In Other Places.

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. To Make Humanity Uncomfortable, Yes. But Intrinsically To Be Against Humanity, That I Don’t Take.

When I Was In England, I Had Seen Advertisements About Typing Agencies; I Had Learned That If You Really Want To Make A Good Impression, You Should Have Your Manuscript Well Typed.

I Teach Literature. That's Easy For Me. Take Someone Else's Work And Talk About It.

The People You See In Nigeria Today Have Always Lived As Neighbors In The Same Space For As Long As We Can Remember. So It's A Matter Of Settling Down, Lowering The Rhetoric, The Level Of Hostility In The Rhetoric Is Too High.

You Must Develop The Habit Of Skepticism, Not Swallow Every Piece Of Superstition You Are Told By Witch-doctors And Professors.

A Goat Does Not Eat Into A Hen's Stomach No Matter How Friendly The Two May Be.

This Is Why I Find Racism Impossible, Because This Is Against Humanity.

Men Have Learned To Shoot Without Missing Their Mark And I Have Learned To Fly Without Perching On A Twig.

We Live In A Sea Of General Ideas, So That's Not A Novel, Since There Are So Many General Ideas. But The Moment A Particular Idea Is Linked To A Character, It's Like An Engine Moves It. Then You Have A Novel Underway.

There Is Something About Important Stories That Is Not Just The Message, But Also The Way That Message Is Conveyed, The Arrangement Of The Words, The Felicity Of The Language. So It's Really A Balance Between Your Commitment, Whether It's Political Or Economic Or Whatever, And Your Craft As An Artist.

I Prefer To Go On Trying All Kinds Of Things, Not To Be Told, This Is The Way It Is Done.

There Is No Story That Is Not True, [...] The World Has No End, And What Is Good Among One People Is An Abomination With Others.

If A Child Washed His Hands, He Could Eat With Kings.

If I Hold Her Hand She Says, ‘don’t Touch!’ If I Hold Her Foot She Says ‘don’t Touch!’ But When I Hold Her Waist-beads She Pretends Not To Know.

There Is A Moral Obligation, I Think, Not To Ally Oneself With Power Against The Powerless.

It Is Praiseworthy To Be Brave And Fearless, But Sometimes It Is Better To Be A Coward. We Often Stand In The Compound Of A Coward To Point At The Ruins Where A Brave Man Used To Live.

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Let The Kite Perch And Let The Eagle Perch Too – If One Says No To The Other, Let His Wing Break.

There Must Be Areas In Which A Particular Character Does Not Represent You.

If The Economy Of A Country Collapses Completely And The Hospitals Are No Longer Able To Function As Hospitals, It Will Be Very Difficult To Tell Every Doctor To Stay Home To Work Without Drugs, To Work Without Equipment. You Might Tell Some To Stay But There A Lot Of Young People Who Are At The Beginning Of Their Careers Who Would Be Very Difficult To Persuade.

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.

If You Ask Me, Now, Is It Your Best Book? I Would Say, I Don't Really Know. I Wouldn't Even Want To Say. And I'd Even Go On And Say, I Don't Even Think So.

As Our Fathers Said, You Can Tell A Ripe Corn By Its Look.

There Is Nothing To Fear From Someone Who Shouts.

I Don't Like To See Mistakes On The Typewriter. I Like A Perfect Script. On The Typewriter I Will Sometimes Leave A Phrase That Is Not Right, Not What I Want, Simply Because To Change It Would Be A Bit Messy.

Men Had Taken Greater Blows: That Was What Made A Man A Man. For Did They Not Say That A Man Is Like A Funeral Ram Which Must Take Whatever Beating Comes To It Without Opening Its Mouth; That The Silent Tremor Of Pain Down Its Body Alone Must Tell Of Its Suffering?

As Long As One People Sit On Another And Are Deaf To Their Cry, So Long Will Understanding And Peace Elude All Of Us.

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.

When Rimbaud Became A Slave Trader, He Stopped Writing Poetry.

If You Had Been Poor In Your Last Life I Would Have Asked You To Be Rich When You Come Again. But You Were Rich. If You Had Been A Coward, I Would Have Asked You To Bring Courage. But You Were A Fearless Warrior. If You Had Died Young, I Would Have Asked You To Get Life. But You Lived Long. So I Shall Ask You To Come Again The Way You Came Before.

Now One Of The Changes That Must Come To Africa Is The Idea Of Limited Rule, I Mean In Term Of How Long One Leader Can Stay In Power. The Era Of President For Life Is Not Gone Yet But It Is On Its Way Out And That Is One Of The Problems With Mugabe And Others.

The World Is Like A Mask Dancing. If You Want To See It Well, You Do Not Stand In One Place.

My Parents Were Early Converts To Christianity In My Part Of Nigeria. They Were Not Just Converts; My Father Was An Evangelist, A Religious Teacher. He And My Mother Traveled For Thirty-five Years To Different Parts Of Igboland, Spreading The Gospel.

A Good Leader For Instance Is Somebody Like Nelson Mandela. I Do Not Have Seen Such People Coming Every Generation, Maybe Every Ten Generations, Every Hundred Generations. People Who Are Miracle Workers.

She Pouted Her Lips Like A Gun In My Face.

Literature, Whether Handed Down By Word Or Mouth Or In Print, Gives Us A Second Handle On Reality.

There Is That Great Proverb — That Until The Lions Have Their Own Historians, The History Of The Hunt Will Always Glorify The Hunter.

The Emperor Would Prefer The Poet To Keep Away From Politics, The Emperor's Domain, So That He Can Manage Things The Way He Likes.

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.

A Functioning, Robust Democracy Requires A Healthy Educated, Participatory Followership, And An Educated, Morally Grounded Leadership.

What A Country Needs To Do Is Be Fair To All Its Citizens - Whether People Are Of A Different Ethnicity Or Gender.

Writers Don't Give Prescriptions. They Give Headaches!

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I Think That Is One Of The First Things That I Got Clear In My Mind When I Began To Play Around With Fiction, That I Had To Find A Language And It Was Not In Existance At The Time. You Have Put It Very Well - It Wasn't To Be Taken For Granted. You Had To Go On And Search Until You Found A Way Through The Conversation Of English And Igbo. The Two Languages Stuck Into Each Other And Tried To Find A Way To Express Through One, The Medium Of The Thoughts. That's A Very Exciting Thing To Do, A Very Difficult Thing To Do.

What I Can Say Is That It Was Clear To Many Of Us That An Indigenous African Literary Renaissance Was Overdue. A Major Objective Was To Challenge Stereotypes, Myths, And The Image Of Ourselves And Our Continent, And To Recast Them Through Stories- Prose, Poetry, Essays, And Books For Our Children. That Was My Overall Goal.

What Really Worries Me Is That Those Who Are In Positions Of Power Are Not Really Affected By What We Are Writing. In The Moral Dialogue You Want To Start, You Really Want To Involve The Leaders. People Ask Me: "why Were You So Bold As To Publish A Man Of The People? How Did You Think The Government Was Going To Take It? You Didn't Know There Was Going To Be A Coup?" I Said Rather Flippantly That Nobody Was Going To Read It Anyway, So I Wasn't Likely To Be Fired From My Official Position. It's A Distressing Thought That We Cannot Engage Our Leaders In The Kind Of Moral Debate We Need.

If You Only Hear One Side Of The Story, You Have No Understanding At All.

The Story Of This Man Who Had Killed A Messenger And Hanged Himself Would Make Interesting Reading. One Could Almost Write A Whole Chapter On Him. Perhaps Not A Whole Chapter But A Resonable Paragraph, At Any Rate. There Was So Much Else To Include, And One Must Be Firm In Cutting Out Details. He Had Already Chosen The Title Of The Book, After Much Thought: `the Pacification Of The Primitive Tribes Of The Lower Niger.'

I'm A Practised Writer Now. But When I Began, I Had No Idea What This Was Going To Be. I Just Knew That There Was Something Inside Me That Wanted Me To Tell Who I Was, And That Would Have Come Out Even If I Didn't Want It.

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.

When Mother-cow Is Chewing Grass Its Young Ones Watch Its Mouth

I Have So Many Ideas; There Are So Many Things That Need To Be Done, So Many Possibilities, You Know; One Is Terribly Excited, But At The Same Time, You're Almost Confused, Because You Don't Know Where To Begin.

There Is A Certain Increase In The Importance I Assign To Women In Getting Us Out Of The Mess That We Are In, Which Is A Reflection Of The Role Of Women In My Traditional Culture - That They Do Not Interfere In Politics Until Men Really Make Such A Mess That The Society Is Unable To Go Backward Or Forward. Then Women Will Move In.

Contradictions If Well Understood And Managed Can Spark Off The Fires Of Invention. Orthodoxy Whether Of The Right Or Of The Left Is The Graveyard Of Creativity.

Become Familiar With Your Home, But Know Also About Your Neighbors. The Young Man Who Never Went Anywhere Thinks His Mother Is The Greatest Cook.

When I Began Going To School And Learned To Read, I Encountered Stories Of Other People And Other Lands. In One Of My Essays, I Remember The Kind Of Things That Fascinated Me. Weird Things, Even, About A Wizard Who Lived In Africa And Went To China To Find A Lamp... Fascinating To Me Because They Were About Things Remote, And Almost Ethereal.

It Is The Story That Owns And Directs Us. It Is The Thing That Makes Us Different From Cattle; It Is The Mark On The Face That Sets One People Apart From Their Neighbors.

I Couldn't Tell You Why But Now I Know A Story Is In Fact Where You Discover Who You Are, Where A Culture Discovers What It Is And I Just Think That This Is A Terribly Important Place To Get Into And That I Would Enjoy It.

Every Lizard Lies On Its Belly, So We Cannot Tell Which Has A Belly-ache

Thought Provoking

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!

Every Generation Must Recognize And Embrace The Task It Is Peculiarly Designed By History And By Providence To Perform.

It Has Always Been Quite Apparent To Me That No Important Story Can Fail To Tell Us Something Of Value To Us.

A Man Who Calls His Kinsmen To A Feast Does Not Do So To Save Them From Starving. They All Have Food In Their Own Homes. When We Gather Together In The Moonlit Village Ground It Is Not Because Of The Moon. Every Man Can See It In His Own Compound. We Come Together Because It Is Good For Kinsmen To Do So.

What You Must Accept Is That Your Life Is Not Going To Be The Same While You Are Writing.

The Man That Brings Ant-infested Faggots Into His Hut Should Not Grumble When Lizards Begin To Pay Him A Visit.

The Price A World Language Must Be Prepared To Pay Is Submission To Many Different Kinds Of Use.

The Only Thing We Have Learnt From Experience Is That We Learn Nothing From Experience.

Thought Provoking

But 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.

An Old Woman Is Always Uneasy When Dry Bones Are Mentioned In A Proverb

Things Fall Apart Important

In Nigeria, There Is Energy, Whether It Is Lagos, Which Is Sheer Anarchy, But It Is Not Lethargic. It Is Strong, Even Aggressive And If That Energy Could Be Directed To Work It Will Produce Really Enormous Results.

If You Don't Like Someone's Story, Write Your Own.

Thought Provoking

When A Man Is At Peace With His Gods And Ancestors, His Harvest Will Be Good Or Bad According To The Strength Of His Arm.

Anybody Who Wants To Rule A Group Will Find That If This Group Is Quarreling Among Themselves They Leave You Alone.

It Is The Storyteller Who Makes Us What We Are, Who Creates History. The Storyteller Creates The Memory That The Survivors Must Have - Otherwise Their Surviving Would Have No Meaning.

You Might As Well Say That The Woman Lies On Top Of The Man When They Are Making The Babies.

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.

Real Tragedy Is Never Resolved. It Goes On Hopelessly For Ever.

What Has Happened To Africa Is Very Severe. We Are Talking About The Collapse Of This And The Collapse Of That, Of Good Government, Of The Economy Particularly. And This Has Hit Education Badly. The News You Get From The Universities In Nigeria Is Often Appalling. I Don't Think A Lot Of It Gets Out. There Is The Obsession With Cults And All Kinds Of Dreadful Things Going On And All This Is Taking Its Toll And It Is Not Surprising That Quality Of Students And Graduates Who Come Out Is Not Good. It Will Not Be Surprising If This Shows In The Quality Of Work They Do.

Perhaps Down In His Heart Okonkwo Was Not A Cruel Man. But His Whole Life Was Dominated By Fear, The Fear Of Failure And Of Weakness. It Was Deeper And More Intimate That The Fear Of Evil And Capricious Gods And Of Magic, The Fear Of The Forest, And Of The Forces Of Nature, Malevolent, Red In Tooth And Claw. Okonkwo’s Fear Was Greater Than These. It Was Not External But Lay Deep Within Himself.

When Brothers Fight To Death A Stranger Inherit Their Father’s Estate

Writing Is Like Wrestling; You Are Wrestling With Ideas And With The Story. There Is A Lot Of Energy Required. At The Same Time, It Is Exciting. So It Is Both Difficult And Easy. What You Must Accept Is That Your Life Is Not Going To Be The Same While You Are Writing. I Have Said In The Kind Of Exaggerated Manner Of Writers And Prophets That Writing, For Me, Is Like Receiving A Term Of Imprisonment-you Know That's What You're In For, For Whatever Time It Takes.

Difficult And Easy

Even The Village Rain-maker No Longer Claimed To Be Able To Intervene. He Could Not Stop The Rain Now, Just As He Would Not Attempt To Start It In The Heart Of The Dry Season, Without Serious Danger To His Own Health.

I Think Not Just Nigeria But I Think The Whole Of Africa Has To Turn Back To The Rural Areas And That's Where The Majority Of The Citizens Are And That's Where The Engine Of Of Development Has To Be Found.

And Theories Are No More Than Fictions Which Help Us To Make Sense Of Experience And Which Are Subject To Disconfirmation When Their Explanations Are No Longer Adequate.

A Man Of Worth Never Gets Up To Unsay What He Said Yesterday.

Thought Provoking

When The Moon Is Shining The Cripple Becomes Hungry For A Walk

When An Old Man Dies, A Library Burns To The Ground.

When A New Saying Gets To The Land Of Empty Men, They Lose Their Heads Over It.

Once A Novel Gets Going And I Know It Is Viable, I Don't Then Worry About Plot Or Themes. These Things Will Come In Almost Automatically Because The Characters Are Now Pulling The Story.

I Am Not An Early-morning Person; I Don't Like To Get Out Of Bed, And So I Don't Begin Writing At Five A.m., Though Some People, I Hear, Do. I Write Once My Day Has Started. And I Can Work Late Into The Night, Also.

The Writer Is Often Faced With Two Choices--turn Away From The Reality Of Life's Intimidating Complexity Or Conquer Its Mystery By Battling With It. The Writer Who Chooses The Former Soon Runs Out Of Energy And Produces Elegantly Tired Fiction.

It Is Difficult To Express The Reality Of Ibo Society In Classical English.

I Think The Language That We Use In Dealing With One Another Is Very Important. And Even If I Am Called Upon To Bring Out Some Money To Support A Regime, And I Am Entitled To Say I Do Not Like What That Regime Does And Obviously I Am Not Going To Put Money There - You Cannot Really Say This Is Wrong Or This Is Unreasonable.

People Go To Africa And Confirm What They Already Have In Their Heads And So They Fail To See What Is There In Front Of Them.

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.

I Feel That The English Language Will Be Able To Carry The Weight Of My African Experience. But It Will Have To Be A New English, Still In Full Communion With Its Ancestral Home But Altered To Suit New African Surroundings.

You Cannot Plant Greatness As You Plant Yams Or Maize. Who Ever Planted An Iroko Tree — The Greatest Tree In The Forest? You May Collect All The Iroko Seeds In The World, Open The Soil And Put Them There. It Will Be In Vain. The Great Tree Chooses Where To Grow And We Find It There, So It Is With The Greatness In Men.

My Son Even If You Want To Fall, At Least Fall Where Your Bones Can Be Gathered

Thought Provoking

In Dealing With A Man Who Thinks You Are A Fool, It Is Good Sometimes To Remind Him That You Know What He Knows But Have Chosen To Appear Foolish For The Sake Of Peace.

Thought Provoking

We Know The Potentiality Of Nigeria And The Talent And The Resources And To See It Having No Effect On The Lives Of The People, On The Infrastructure, The Roads, The Hospitals, The Schools, Seeing No Effect Of These Talents, These Recourses Is Very Frustrating. But It Is The Result Of The Damage That Was Done To The Country, Especially During The Various Military Regimes.

A Toad Does Not Run In The Daytime For Nothing

If You Don't Like Someone's Story, Write Your Own. If You Don't Like What Somebody Says, Say What It Is You Don't Like.

When I Think Of The Standing, The Importance And The Erudition Of All These People Who See Nothing About Racism In Heart Of Darkness, I'm Convinced That We Must Really Be Living In Different Worlds.

Those Who Are Talking Sharia In Nigeria Are Really Just Politicians Exploiting What They Think Is Available. But If It Should Turn Out That There Are In Fact Whole Sections Of The Country Which Believe That It Is Legitimate To Chop Off Peoples Hands Because They Stole A Hen - If That Should Really Turn Out To Be The Genuine Belief Of Responsible, Educated People In The North Than I Would Say There Is No Chance. But I Do Not Believe That Is The Case. The Sharia Was Always There But It Was Never Force Onto Non-muslims And It Was Not Ever Applied In The Area Of Criminal Law.

It Always Surprised Him When He Thought Of It Later That He Did Not Sink Under The Load Of Despair.

It's So Easy To Get Into The Same Routine. A Novel Every Two Years; Perhaps, Improving Technique. But I'm Not Interested In That. I'm Interested In Doing Something Fundamentally Important--and Therefore, It Needs Time. And What I've Been Doing, Really, Is Avoiding This Pressure To Get Into The Habit Of One Novel A Year. This Is What Is Expected Of Novelists. And I Have Never Been Really Too Much Concerned With Doing What Is Expected Of Novelists, Or Writers, Or Artists. I Want To Do What I Believe Is Important.

The Singer Should Sing Well Even If It Is Merely To Himself, Rather Than Dance Badly For The Whole World.

Art Is Man's Constant Effort To Create For Himself A Different Order Of Reality From That Which Is Given To Him.

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.

World Suffering

Thought Provoking

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.

When I'm Writing, I Really Want To Satisfy Myself. I've Got A Story That I Am Working On And Struggling With, And I Want To Tell It The Most Effective Way I Can. That's Really What I Struggle With. And The Thought Of Who May Be Reading It May Be There Somewhere In The Back Of My Mind - I'll Never Say It's Not There Because I Don't Know - But It's Not Really What I'm Thinking About.

If You're Rooted To A Spot, You Miss A Lot Of The Grace. So You Keep Moving, And This Is The Way I Think The World's Stories Should Be Told - From Many Different Perspectives.

Good Leaders, Competent Leaders Must See It As Primary Task To Create Friendliness. This Something Within The Scope Of Most People. Now Artists, Like Writers And Sort Of Course Have An Added Option Of Using Their Scale And Talent With This In View. It Is Their Business To Create An Environment In Which Our People Will Prosper And Be Happy.

A Man Who Does Not Lick His Lips, Can He Blame The Harmattan For Drying Them?

The Trouble With Nigeria Is Simply And Squarely A Failure Of Leadership. There Is Nothing Basically Wrong With The Nigerian Land Or Climate Or Water Or Air Or Anything Else. The Nigerian Problem Is The Unwillingness Or Inability Of Its Leaders To Rise To The Responsibility, To The Challenge Of Personal Example Which Are The Hallmarks Of True Leadership.

If One Finger Brings Oil It Soils The Others.

Nigeria Has Had A Complicated Colonial History. My Work Has Examined That Part Of Our Story Extensively.

Nigeria Independence

Unless I'm Writing In The Igbo Language, I Use A Language Developed Elsewhere, Which Is English. That Affects The Way I Write. It Even Affects To Some Extent The Stories I Write.

A Kinsman In Trouble Had To Be Saved, Not Blamed; Anger Against A Brother Was Felt In The Flesh, Not In The Bone.

The Trouble With Nigeria Is Simply And Squarely A Failure Of Leadership.

Failure Of Leadership

My Weapon Is Literature

If Someone Said, I Want To Translate Your Novel Into Igbo, I Would Say, Go Ahead. But When I Write In The Igbo Language, I Write My Own Dialect. I Write Some Poetry In That Dialect.

One Would Think He Never Sucked At His Mother’s Breast.

We Don't Want To Be Simply Wandering About Without Some Kind Of Reason, We Want Our Presence Here To Have A Purpose, And That We Are Not Going To End Here, We Are Going To Proceed Somewhere Else, And Also That We Didn't Begin Here, That We Began Somewhere Else And All That Living, All That Elaborate Account Of Our Presence Seems To Be Quite Basic To Our Nature And So This Is What Literacy Taps Into.

If You Were To Loose The Habit Of Making The Effort To Get The Book And Read The Words One By One You Would Have Lost Something Terribly Important. So I Think That We Have A Task To Ensure That This Doesn't Happen.

The Writer Cannot Expect To Be Excused From The Task Of Reeducation And Regeneration That Must Be Done. In Fact, He Should March Right In Front.

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.

He Who Fights For A Ne'er-do-well Has Nothing To Show For It Except A Head Covered In Earth And Grime.

Whatever Music You Beat On Your Drum There Is Somebody Who Can Dance To It.

If I Write Novels In A Country In Which Most Citizens Are Illiterate, Who Then Is My Community?

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.

You Do Not Know Me,’ Said Tortoise. ‘i Am A Changed Man. I Have Learned That A Man Who Makes Trouble For Others Makes Trouble For Himself.

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.

Children Are Very Fair Minded, They Really Are.

People Go To Africa And Confirm What They Already Have In Their Heads And So They Fail To See What Is There In Front Of Them. This Is What People Have Come To Expect. Its Not Viewed As A Serious Continent. Its A Place Of Strange, Bizarre And Illogical Things, Where People Dont Do What Common Sense Demands.

I Think Writers Are Not Only Writers, They Are Also Citizens.

When A Mad Man Walks Naked, It Is His Kinsmen Who Feel Shame, Not Himself.

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.

[would] A Sensible Man Spit Out The Juicy Morsel That Good Fortune Put In His Mouth?

Do Not Be In A Hurry To Rush Into The Pleasures Of The World Like The Young Antelope Who Danced Herself Lame When The Main Dance Was Yet To Come.

The Triumph Of The Written Word Is Often Attained When The Writer Achieves Union And Trust With The Reader, Who Then Becomes Ready To Be Drawn Into Unfamiliar Territory, Walking In Borrowed Literary Shoes So To Speak, Toward A Deeper Understanding Of Self Or Society, Or Of Foreign Peoples, Cultures, And Situations.

There Is That Great Proverb - That Until The Lions Have Their Own Historians, The History Of The Hunt Will Always Glorify The Hunter. That Did Not Come To Me Until Much Later. Once I Realized That, I Had To Be A Writer. I Had To Be That Historian. It's Not One Man's Job. It's Not One Person's Job. But It Is Something We Have To Do, So That The Story Of The Hunt Will Also Reflect The Agony, The Travail - The Bravery, Even, Of The Lions.

"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?"

If You Have Leaders Who Are Prepared To Incite Group Against Group It Is Very Easy To Manufacture Reasons And Excuses.

Dancing Is Very Important Nowadays. No Girl Will Look At You If You Can't Dance.

A Child Cannot Pay For Its Mother’s Milk.

I Wouldn't Have Wanted Anyone To Teach Me How To Write. That's My Own Taste. I Prefer To Stumble On It.

There Is No Story That Is Not True.

Things Fall Apart Important

Charity . . . Is The Opium Of The Privileged.

The Impatient Idealist Says: 'give Me A Place To Stand And I Shall Move The Earth.' But Such A Place Does Not Exist. We All Have To Stand On The Earth Itself And Go With Her At Her Pace.

At The Most One Could Say That His Chi Or ... Personal God Was Good. But The Ibo People Have A Proverb That When A Man Says Yes His Chi Says Yes Also. Okonkwo Said Yes Very Strongly; So His Chi Agreed.

This Is Not Pessimism But Rather Casting A Cold Eye On Things. It Is Only One Man's Story, And I Think That Things Will Go Better, But Difficulties Exist And Nothing Is Served By Hiding Them Under A Poetic Veil Or Under A Lyricism Of The Past. I Am Against Slogans.

Living Fire Begets Cold, Impotent Ash.

While We Do Our Good Works Let Us Not Forget That The Real Solution Lies In A World In Which Charity Will Have Become Unnecessary.

I Am Against People Reaping Where They Have Not Sown. But We Have A Saying That If You Want To Eat A Toad You Should Look For A Fat And Juicy One.

Serious And Good Art Has Always Existed To Help, To Serve, Humanity. Not To Indict.

We Live In A Society That Is In Transition From Oral To Written. There Are Oral Stories That Are Still There, Not Exactly In Their Full Magnificence, But Still Strong In Their Differentness From Written Stories. Each Mode Has Its Ways And Methods And Rules. They Can Reinforce Each Other; This Is The Advantage My Generation Has - We Can Bring To The Written Story Something Of That Energy Of The Story Told By Word Of Mouth.

The Novelist As Teacher”: “i Would Be Quite Satisfied If My Novels (especially The Ones I Set In The Past) Did No More Than Teach My Readers That Their Past – With All Its Imperfections – Was Not One Long Night Of Savagery From Which The First Europeans Acting On God’s Behalf Delivered Them.

I'm Amazed When I Think About Students Today. They Know From Day One What They Are Going To Be. We Didn't. We Just Coasted. We Just Knew That Things Would Work Out.

When A Tradition Gathers Enough Strength To Go On For Centuries, You Don't Just Turn It Off One Day.

Mr. Brown Had Thought Of Nothing But Numbers. He Should Have Known That The Kingdom Of God Did Not Depend On Large Crowds. Our Lord Himself Stressed The Importance Of Fewness. Narrow Is The Way And Few The Number. To Fill The Lord's Holy Temple With An Idolatrous Crowd Clamoring For Signs Was A Folly Of Everlasting Consequence. Our Lord Used The Whip Only Once In His Life - To Drive The Crowd Away From His Church.

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.

The Sun Will Shine On Those Who Stand Before It Shines On Those Who Kneel Under Them.

I Think Dialects Should Be Left Alone. People Should Write In Whatever Dialect They Feel They Want To Write. In The Fullness Of Time, These Dialects Will Sort Themselves Out.

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.

Do You Blame A Vulture For Perching Over A Carcass?

An Angry Man Is Always A Stupid Man.

Africa Is To Europe As The Picture Is To Dorian Gray-a Carrier Onto Whom The Master Unloads His Physical & Moral Deformities

Poetry And Slave Trading Cannot Be Bedfellows. That's Where I Stand.

No Matter How Prosperous A Man Was, If He Was Unable To Rule His Women And His Children (and Especially His Women) He Was Not Really A Man.

I Know That An Important Message Is Not A Novel. To Say That We Should All Be Kind To Our Neighbors Is An Important Statement; It's Not A Novel.

Most Writers Who Are Beginners, If They Are Honest With Themselves, Will Admit That They Are Praying For A Readership As They Begin To Write. But It Should Be The Quality Of The Craft, Not The Audience, That Should Be The Greatest Motivating Factor.

Whenever I Try To Do Anything On A Typewriter, It's Like Having This Machine Between Me And The Words; What Comes Out Is Not Quite What Would Come Out If I Were Scribbling.

Among The Igbo The Art Of Conversation Is Regarded Very Highly, And Proverbs Are The Palm-oil With Which Words Are Eaten.

Naming Is Like Putting A Stamp On Something And Fixing It. A Kind Of Formaldehyde Sort Of Fixation, But It Becomes Dead, Sitting There Forever, Frozen. So, I'm Not A Great One For These Modernist, Post Modernist, Post Colonial Labels. I Think They Serve Certain Purpose. You Do Need Some Kind Of Sign Post Here And There, But It Can Also Become An End In Itself.

A Man Who Lived On The Banks Of The Niger Should Not Wash His Hands With Spittle.

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.

Just Think Of The Work You've Set Yourself To Do, And Do It As Well As You Can.

Whenever You See A Toad Jumping In Broad Daylight, Then Know That Something Is After Its Life.

A Coward May Cover The Ground With His Words But When The Time Comes To Fight He Runs Away.

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Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

R. Buckminster Fuller

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