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 SOYINKAAs a global citizen, I sometimes feel like denying my identity.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.
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I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you’re actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
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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.
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When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.
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See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
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For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.
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The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
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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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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
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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.
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Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.
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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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Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
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I’m not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I’ve never understood.
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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