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" The blatant aggressiveness of theocracies I find distressing, because I grew up when Christians, Muslim and animists lived peacefully together. "

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" An idyllic period of my existence was when I had a den attached to my home... a writing den, and no one had access to that unless they had their own special visa, applied for weeks in advance. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" All religions accept that there is something called 'criminality.' And criminality cannot be excused by religious fervour. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" One, a mass movement from within, which, as you know, is constantly being put down brutally but which, again, regroups and moves forward as is happening right now as we are speaking. "

" 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've done a lot of guerrilla theater in my time. "

" Politics, I believe, is a full-time occupation. "

" Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth. "

" Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity. "

" The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism. "

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

" 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. "

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

" There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda. Propaganda can be written by anybody, including dictators. "

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

" I've always written plays for the purpose of getting something out of my system. "

" 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. "

" Some of the greatest uprisings and consequent civil wars in Mexico have centered squarely on the ownership of land. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "