Blue Belle

“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah

“Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.”
― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah

“It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence.The story is our escort;without it,we are blind.Does the blind man own his escort?No,neither do we the story;rather,it is the story that owns us.
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― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah

“In the vocabulary of certain radical theorists contradictions are given the status of some deadly disease to which their opponents alone can succumb. But contradictions are the very stuff of life. If there had been a little dash of contradiction among the Gadarene swine some of them might have been saved from drowning.”
― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah