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" My father was a schoolteacher, and so I had the advantage of both western educational instruction in the school, as well as what you might call the process of imbibing the traditional processes of education instruction around me. "

Wole Soyinka

Father

Process

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" The writer is the visionary of his people... He anticipates, he warns. "

Wole Soyinka

Visionary

People

" Even when I'm writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for. "

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

" 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. "

" I ceased using words like optimism and pessimism a long time ago. "

" We Nigerians must reclaim our sovereignty, our civic entitlements. "

" Nigeria has had the misfortune - no, the fortune - of seeing the worst face of capitalism anywhere in Africa. The masses have seen it, they are disgusted, and they want an alternative. "

" I don't have the sort of temperament that submits to Christianity or Islam. "

" Some people think the Nobel Prize makes you bullet-proof. I never had that illusion. "

" I don't know any other way to live but to wake up every day 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

Wake Up

Day

" You always assume for some strange reason that you need three meals a day. "

" Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth. "

" 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. "

" When I write plays, I'm already seeing the shapes on stage, of the actors and their interaction, and so on and so forth. I don't think I've ever written one play as an abstract piece, as a literary piece, floating in the air somewhere, to be flushed out later on. "

" 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. "

" I take friendship very seriously. "

" In the world of literature, I see prizes as more of a duty to the craft itself, rather than as something for the individual. "

" You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.' "

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

Wole Soyinka

Words

Where

" Some African leaders actually dare to suggest that democracy is a concept alien to traditional African society. This is one of the most impudent political blasphemies I can think of. "

" Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done. "

" The Lagos of my childhood was a well-laid-out maritime city. "

" There's no way to escape the culture that has evolved, from which we ourselves have evolved. Naturally, we stress it, break it up, reassemble it to suit our own needs. But it is there - a source of vital strength. "

" One has a responsibility to clean up one's space and make it livable as far as one's own resources go. That includes not only material resources, but psychological resources: the commitment of time and a portion of your mind to something when you'd rather be doing something else. "

" One has to confront history honestly. "

" We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where. "

" England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. "

" Military dictatorship, you can focus on it, you can fight it directly. It's a band of power-driven people. "

" 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. "

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