I never hesitated, as a student, in embracing the necessity of violence. In South Africa, I didn’t just accept it; I looked forward to it as a mission.
WOLE SOYINKABut theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That’s why I call it the most social of the various art forms.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
-
-
You accept whoever you are interacting with, directly, or indirectly.
WOLE SOYINKA -
I said: “A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces”. In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: “I am a tiger”. When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Don’t take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
WOLE SOYINKA -
The media must be used effectively to reach the masses. You have to find a new language in which to address the people and demonstrate what is possible.
WOLE SOYINKA -
I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Alfred Nobel regretted that his invention, dynamite, was converted to degrading use, hence his creation of the Nobel Prize, as the humanist counter to the destructive power of his genius.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Intolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it’s the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.
WOLE SOYINKA -
And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
WOLE SOYINKA -
What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that’s my function, but from time to time it’s possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.
WOLE SOYINKA -
The writer is the visionary of his people… He anticipates, he warns.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
WOLE SOYINKA -
It is the human potentials that interest me. I travel and everywhere I go I am amazed at the presence of Nigerians. The intelligence, integrity, productivity, initiative.
WOLE SOYINKA