I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we’d never smelled the fumes of petroleum.
WOLE SOYINKAI am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we’d never smelled the fumes of petroleum.
WOLE SOYINKAMy father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep. When the children would gather, at a certain point, I had a tendency to make up my own elementary variations on stories I had heard, or to invent totally new ones.
WOLE SOYINKAWe live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
WOLE SOYINKAPower is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
WOLE SOYINKABut the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That’s all.
WOLE SOYINKAThe 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 SOYINKAWell, some people say I’m pessimistic because I recognize the eternal cycle of evil. All I say is, look at the history of mankind right up to this moment and what do you find?
WOLE SOYINKAGovernance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it’s in there.
WOLE SOYINKAVery conscious of the fact that an effort was being made to destroy my mind, because I was deprived of books, deprived of any means of writing, deprived of human companionship. You never know how much you need it until you’re deprived of it.
WOLE SOYINKAIntolerance has become, I think, the reigning ideology of the world today, the intolerance versus intolerance and it’s taken on lethal proportions.
WOLE SOYINKAWe do not ask the mountain’s aid to crack a walnut.
WOLE SOYINKAReligion has really spawned some monsters. It always has, historically. Go all the way back to the Inquisition, you know, the Crusades, the Jehad and so on.
WOLE SOYINKAA tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.
WOLE SOYINKAMy understanding of the creative process is simply that all cultures and all concerns meet at a certain point, the human point in which everything is related to one another. That has been my creative experience.
WOLE SOYINKAThere is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?
WOLE SOYINKAI 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 SOYINKA