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Chinua Achebe Quotes about Running

All Chinua Achebe Quotes Age Art Bones Challenges Character Children Country Dancing Diversity Earth Effort Energy Failing Fighting Giving Heart Home Humanity Language Life Literature Lying Nigeria Past Perspective Purpose Racism Reading Reality Running quotes School Struggle Suffering Today Understanding War Worry Writing
A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.

A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.

Chinua Achebe
Running, Fighting, Coward
Chinua Achebe (1986). “Arrow of God”, p.50, Heinemann

...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.

Chinua Achebe
Running, Risk, Injustice
Chinua Achebe (2009). “The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays”, p.95, Anchor

Colonial rule means that power, initiative is taken away from you by somebody else who makes your decisions. If that goes on long enough, beyond one generation, then the habit of self-rule is forgotten. People are no longer able to realize what it means. To be dependant for a hundred years! And suddenly when this thing ends there is nobody who actually knows how to set about running the country.

Chinua Achebe
Running, Country, Taken
Source: www.ehlingmedia.com

A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing

Chinua Achebe
Running, Doe, Toads
Chinua Achebe (1996). “Things Fall Apart”, p.15, Heinemann

The ordinary Nigerians have lived as neighbors down the millennia. I was talking about the British who came and merged a whole number of mini states and big states into one unit. But those people were always there, and they always managed to live side by side with their neighbours. So they were not owned or run by one kingdom. It was not practically impossible for these people when they have different languages and religions to be neighbors. So it is that habit of neighbourliness which is destroyed and put under great strain again and again when you have things like massacres.

Chinua Achebe
Running, Talking, Numbers
Source: www.ehlingmedia.com

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.

Chinua Achebe
Running, Writing, Tired
Chinua Achebe (2012). “There Was a Country: A Memoir”, p.50, Penguin

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