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" 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. "

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" Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom. "

Wole Soyinka

Truth

Society

Power

" No human is completely fearless. "

Wole Soyinka

Fearless

Human

" There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people. I'm talking about a writer's critics, who don't address what you've written, but want to probe into your existence and magnify the trivia of your life without any sense of humor, without any sense of context. "

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

" 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. "

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

" Writers and intellectuals have a duty to humanity. It is to insist that the human entity remains the primary asset in overall development; thus, it must be safeguarded. "

" The Sudanese government has been playing games with the world, with the Africa Union, in particular, have been playing for time in order to conclude its mission of ethnic cleansing in the Sudan. "

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

" 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. "

" 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? "

" 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

Government

" African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance. "

" Trading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent. "

" 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

Oil

Never

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" An excessive amount of my time is taken with political involvement. It's unavoidable; that's my temperament. "

" Before you're a writer, you're a citizen, a human being, and therefore the weapons of the citizen are at your disposal to use or not use. "

" I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence. "

" There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind. "

" Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space. "

" No writer has a right to make that much money. Indeed, without diabolical assistance, no writer can. "

" 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. "

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

" The Nation of Islam provides an antidote in the United States to fundamentalist Islam - which is why individuals from America have to go abroad to find radical teachings. "

" 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