Best 141 quotes of Wole Soyinka on MyQuotes

African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.

After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.

Alfred Nobel regretted that his invention, dynamite, was converted to degrading use, hence his creation of the Nobel Prize, as the humanist counter to the destructive power of his genius.

And gradually they're beginning to recognize the fact that there's nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it's sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.

And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.

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.

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

As a president, you've got to show some example. I am disturbed for instance when I read that a candidate said, 'I will not probe anybody or something like that'. You don't fight corruption by sweeping everything under the carpet, you don't. You just say, am going to allow the law take its course; I am going to empower the agencies which has been set up for such specific purpose of stemming the corrupt out flow of resources from this nation and don't even talk to me about corruption beyond saying you going to strengthen existing institutions.

. . . 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.

As I grew older and more mature, I've been able to move beyond the immediate response of violence to a projection of the pragmatic, political consequences of that violence. So it's an effort to attain equilibrium.

As you get drawn more and more into other activities, like political activities, very demanding, you have to find different rhythms of writing; I think that's the word I'm looking for, rhythms of creativity which then, of course, become very intense. I think your writing then tends to be very intensified simply because there are other demands which seem equally important.

Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.

Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.

Boko Haram represents the ultimate Fatwa of our time. The question is does the sect's Fatwa represent the articulated position of the majority of Muslims in this nation? My reading over the last few years is an unambiguous no. We are undergoing an affliction that many could not have imagined about a decade ago. Let us confront the ultimate horror now. To remain inactive at this moment is to betray our children and to consolidate the ongoing crimes against our humanity. We must take the battle to the enemy...We sent our children to school; we must bring them back to school.

But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.

But when you're deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it's amazing.

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.

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.

Don't feel that you have to tailor your literature a particular way to please any school of ideology. There will emerge in its own right, effortlessly, some kind of ideological direction which is a reflection of your thinking and you want your thinking, above all.

Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.

Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.

Everybody knows that fraternities are a normal culture in all colleges. It exists in all colleges. President Clinton was a member of a fraternity. In fact, anybody who goes to College in the United States is a member of a College fraternity. There is absolutely nothing evil or occultic about fraternity.

For many playwrights, they write the plays anyway because they've got to be, the work has been started, it's got to be finished, but we all long, I think, to see the plays fleshed out on stage and I'm exactly like that. Yes, I'm not satisfied until I actually see it on stage.

For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.

For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.

Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Rwanda has indicated that however thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, Rwanda has risen from the ashes as a model or truth and reconciliation.

Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it's in there.

History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.

I am a very curious person; I'll always ask: is this thing true, is it not true? And I use my own means to investigate and come to my conclusion.

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.

I am disturbed for instance when I read that a candidate said, 'I will not probe anybody or something like that'. You don't fight corruption by sweeping everything under the carpet, you don't.

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.

I believe that prizes are useful things for the disciplines, whether we are talking about chemistry or we're talking... It motivates, it, you know, inspires, it encourages and it brings, in the case of literature, it brings literature, the arts out of the ghetto.

I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.

I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.

I come alive when I have assisted in bringing out the printed word on the stage, you know, and I enjoy directing plays. It's a tactile process, theatre, unlike a number of other forms of the creative work.

I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.

I do not believe that it is necessarily the duty of the writer to give a voice to his community. If a writer is true to his vocation, to his or her vocation, the very process of creativity enlarges these human horizons. It provides insights, even when you're not writing, when your writing's not dealing with a concrete political situation.

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.

I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.

If I were sure I would pass the physicals, I would be on the next space shuttle to Mars or some other planet. I'll leave the calculations and the navigational tasks to you while I bask in your ingenuity. Find me a place in the capsule and watch me outdo Michael Jackson's moonwalk to the music of the spheres.

If man cannot, what god dare claim perfection?

I found, when I left, that there were others who felt the same way. We'd meet, they'd come and seek me out, we'd talk about the future. And I found that their depression and pessimism was every bit as acute as mine.

I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.

I grew up with a very strong sense of what is just and what is not or, to put it this way, I grew up with a keen sense of a division, the reality of a division of perception in people's lives between those who govern and those who govern.

I happen to be unfortunately temperamental. No, my temperament is also, what you describe to rainfalls, the will of society, to combat a number of contradictions. That happens to be my creative temperament.

I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.

I have one abiding religion-human liberty.

I know there are other writers who sit down religiously every morning, they take their espresso, they put a clean sheet of paper there and they sit looking at that paper until they've finished or covered at least a number of those pages. No, I'm not like that. I have to be ready. It has to gestate it for quite a while and then it's ready to burst forth.