Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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

Related Quotes:

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

Wole Soyinka

Words

Where

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm an Afro-realist. I take what comes, and I do my best to affect what is unacceptable in society. "

" 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. "

" One has to confront history honestly. "

" I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood. "

" 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.' "

" There's a kind of dynamic quality about theater and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it's being staged; then the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the audience. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" One's own self-worth is tied to the worth of the community to which one belongs, which is intimately connected to humanity in general. What happens in Darfur becomes an assault on my own community, and on me as an individual. That's what the human family is all about. "

Wole Soyinka

Worth

Humanity

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake. "

" I love beauty. But I like the beauty accidentally, not dished up, served up on a platter. "

Wole Soyinka

Served

Beauty

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie. "

" 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. "

" 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. "