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" One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer. "
Wole Soyinka
Am
I Am
I Can
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" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Capitalism
Africa
Seeing
" One has to confront history honestly. "
Wole Soyinka
Honestly
History
Confront
" Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space. "
Wole Soyinka
Dictatorship
Nation
Outer Space
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Communication
Nature
Art
" I like to say, 'I spend one-third of my time in Nigeria, one-third in Europe or America, and one-third on a plane.' "
Wole Soyinka
America
Europe
Time
" Some people think the Nobel Prize makes you bullet-proof. I never had that illusion. "
Wole Soyinka
You
Never
People
" In Africa, those who have money - businessmen and banks - do not believe in film. "
Wole Soyinka
Believe
Those
Africa
" 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
Think
Confidence
Action
" Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done. "
Wole Soyinka
Done
People
Work
" Military dictatorship, you can focus on it, you can fight it directly. It's a band of power-driven people. "
Wole Soyinka
You
Fight
Band
" My understanding of the creative process is simply that all cultures and all concerns meet at a certain point, the human point in which everything is related to one another. That has been my creative experience. I never know who's influencing me at any time. "
Wole Soyinka
Me
Process
Time
" The problem with literature, with writing, is that it works sometimes in terms of correction of social ills. Other times, it just does not suffice. "
Wole Soyinka
Sometimes
Literature
Problem
" I'm not sure I'm trying to communicate a message. I'm just trying to be part of the movement away from the unacceptable present. "
Wole Soyinka
Message
Trying
Present
" The scales of reckoning with mortality are never evenly weighted, alas, and thus it is on the shoulders of the living that the burden of justice must continue to rest. "
Wole Soyinka
Living
Justice
Rest
" The phenomenon of creativity, we know, is closely related to the ability to yoke together separate, and even seemingly incompatible, matrices. "
Wole Soyinka
Know
Together
Creativity
" Rwanda, which is one of the younger independent states in Africa, must be regarded as a model of how great human trauma can be transformed to commence true reconstruction of people. Human trauma can lead to stunted growth and mass withdrawal. "
Wole Soyinka
Growth
True
People
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Nothing
More
Government
" I'm not fond of biographies. I don't like writing about myself. "
Wole Soyinka
About
Fond
Like
" The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism. "
Wole Soyinka
Criticism
Greatest
Absence
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Military
Dictator
Death
" Education is lacking in most of those who pontificate. "
Wole Soyinka
Lacking
Who
Those
" History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice. "
Wole Soyinka
Beware
Justice
Thirst
" 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
Poetry
Art
School
" Trading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent. "
Wole Soyinka
History
World
Together
" The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny. "
Wole Soyinka
Silent
Keep
Face
" Those nations that say it's a crime to preach your religion are making a terrible mistake. All they're doing is driving underground other forms of spiritual intuitions and practices. "
Wole Soyinka
Mistake
Spiritual
Driving
" Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth. "
Wole Soyinka
Truth
Books
Terror
" If African film makers had one-tenth the amount commanded by film makers the world over - even the amount used by so-called shoestring film makers - I think we would see quite an explosion of African films on the world scene. "
Wole Soyinka
Used
World
Film
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Think
Air
Play
" I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper. "
Wole Soyinka
Words
Process
Important