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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

As a global citizen, I sometimes feel like denying my identity.
WOLE SOYINKA

Citizen Deny Feel Global Identity Sometimes
I don’t know any other way to live but to wake up everyday armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.
WOLE SOYINKA

Arm Conviction Danger Day Every Know Other Power Threat Wake Way Yield
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

Other Prince Proclaim Say Stand Tiger Tignitude Word
Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
WOLE SOYINKA

Beyond Exactly Live Some Poet Sometimes World
The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth.
WOLE SOYINKA

Constantly Media Public Responsibility Truth
My 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 SOYINKA

Asleep Certain Children Father Fell Gather Point Story Use
Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
WOLE SOYINKA

Create Disrupt Each Myself Private Some Space Think Throwback Time
The writer is the visionary of his people… He anticipates, he warns.
WOLE SOYINKA

Anticipate People Visionary Warm Water
Let’s say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don’t think we have a new Nigeria yet.
WOLE SOYINKA

Country People Person Prospect Say Yet
. . . as far as the regime is concerned, well, the play is sheer terror for them. Because they feel, How dare – how dare anybody lift his or her voice in criticism against us? We have the guns. Their level of paranoia and power-drunkenness is unbelievable.
WOLE SOYINKA

Concern Far Feel Play Regime Sheer Terror Well
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.
WOLE SOYINKA

Being Book Conscious Deprive Destroy Effort Fact Made Mean Mind Very Writing
I know there are writers who get up every morning and sit by their typewriter or word processor or pad of paper and wait to write. I don’t function that way. I go through a long period of gestation before I’m even ready to write.
WOLE SOYINKA

Every Get Know Morning Paid Paper Processor Typewriter Wait Word Write Writer
I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.
WOLE SOYINKA

Absolute Believe Cause Certainty Confidence Feel Must One Self Think Through
Intolerance has become, I think, the reigning ideology of the world today, the intolerance versus intolerance and it’s taken on lethal proportions.
WOLE SOYINKA

Become Ideology Intolerance Reigning Think Today Whole World
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

Began Early Festival Poem Poetry Selling Short Story Very Writing
We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
WOLE SOYINKA

Appeal Humanity Live Materialist Matter Strongly

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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