Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.
WOLE SOYINKANo man beholds his mother’s womb Yet who denies it’s there? Coiled To the navel of the world is that Endless cord that links us all To the great Origin. If I lose my way. The trailing cord will bring me to the roots.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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There 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?
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Romance is the sweetening of the soul With fragrance offered by the stricken heart.
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For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.
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Let’s say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don’t think we have a new Nigeria yet.
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If man cannot, what god dare claim perfection?
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I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.
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I don’t really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Very 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.
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Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.
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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.
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You cannot live a normal existence if you haven’t taken care of a problem that affects your life and affects the lives of others, values that you hold which in fact define your very existence.
WOLE SOYINKA -
The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
WOLE SOYINKA -
There’s a lot of insincerity about the actions of our legislators; they create distractions – like this anti-gay law you alluded to – and try to mobilise, to exacerbate people’s emotions. Until the legislators started making laws, people minded, generally, their own business.
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I rarely use mythology for its own sake because, as a theatre person, the mythological figures are in fact humanity to the ninth degree and Yoruba mythology in particular has fascination of being one of the most humanised mythologies in the world.
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And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
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When I say war, I’m not talking about mental war; I’m talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.
WOLE SOYINKA -
I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.
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The man dies in all those that keep silent.
WOLE SOYINKA -
The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
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Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.
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.
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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
WOLE SOYINKA -
My 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 SOYINKA -
I began writing early – very, very early… I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals; I was involved in school plays; I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, ‘Now I’m a writer.’ I’ve always been a writer.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
WOLE SOYINKA