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Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.

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.
WOLE SOYINKA

Accept Articulated Collective Definition Good Minority Power Privilege Society Specially
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 SOYINKA

Accept Country Entrance Forward Hesitate Look Mission Necessity Student Violence
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

Care Effect Existence Life Live Normal Other Problem Taken
For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.
WOLE SOYINKA

Condition For Humanity Justice Prime
The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth.
WOLE SOYINKA

Constantly Media Public Responsibility Truth
Culture is a matrix of infinite possibilities and choices. From within the same culture matrix we can extract arguments and strategies for the degradation and ennoblement of our species, for its enslavement or liberation, for the suppression of its productive potential or its enhancement.
WOLE SOYINKA

Choice Culture Matrix Poosisblity
As a global citizen, I sometimes feel like denying my identity.
WOLE SOYINKA

Citizen Deny Feel Global Identity Sometimes
You have the entire gamut of human experience captured in the mythology of the Yoruba. This is what makes the Yoruba mythology a natural source material for me in my creative endeavours.
WOLE SOYINKA

Capture Entire Experience Gamut Human Make Mythology Natural Yoruba
Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
WOLE SOYINKA

Be Just Ultimate Yourself
We all have our individual artistic temperaments as well as partisanships in creative directions. And we have strong opinions on the merits of the products of our occupation.
WOLE SOYINKA

All Artistic Creative Direction Individual Temperament Well
I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.
WOLE SOYINKA

Believe Comfortable Each Language Most Must Decide Writer
Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
WOLE SOYINKA

Control Domination Form Lie Power Selective Therefore Truth
Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.
WOLE SOYINKA

Been Mythological Problem State Urgent Use Very 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
Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it’s in there.
WOLE SOYINKA

Dig Even Governance Huge Itself Know There
The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
WOLE SOYINKA

Biggest Bottom Dip Eat Hard Pot Small
The writer is the visionary of his people… He anticipates, he warns.
WOLE SOYINKA

Anticipate People Visionary Warm Water
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
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
Arts and the Sciences are a natural symbiosis. They stem from the same human existential impulse – exploration. Exploration of what lies beneath the surface, and re-confuguration of elements of what we call reality.
WOLE SOYINKA

Existential Exploration Human Impulse Natural Same Science Stem Symbiosis
A human feast is an indifferent morsel to a god.
WOLE SOYINKA

Gfeast God Human Indifference Morsel
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?
WOLE SOYINKA

Home Idea Life Man Mussel One Only River Shell Soul Tortoise
Well, 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 SOYINKA

Cycle Eternal Evil People Pessimistic Recognizing Say Some
Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there’s a lot of work to be done.
WOLE SOYINKA

Done Face Feel Get Look Lot People Work
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
Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
WOLE SOYINKA

Appear Human Other Shudder Sometimes Think Winter
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 SOYINKA

Convince Country Develop Highly More Oil People

Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.

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Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.

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