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" Well, first of all I'll say that I come alive best in theater. "
Wole Soyinka
Come
First
Best
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" Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity. "
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Service
Life
Humanity
" One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer. "
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Am
I Am
I Can
" Education is lacking in most of those who pontificate. "
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Lacking
Who
Those
" In the world of literature, I see prizes as more of a duty to the craft itself, rather than as something for the individual. "
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See
Craft
Duty
" An excessive amount of my time is taken with political involvement. It's unavoidable; that's my temperament. "
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Involvement
Time
Political
" 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. "
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Living
Justice
Rest
" I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident. "
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Just
Out
Myself
" 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
" Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth. "
Wole Soyinka
Books
Always
Writing
" The writer is the visionary of his people... He anticipates, he warns. "
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Visionary
People
He
" 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.' "
Wole Soyinka
You
Say
Big
" 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
" 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
" I love beauty. But I like the beauty accidentally, not dished up, served up on a platter. "
Wole Soyinka
Served
Up
Beauty
" No human is completely fearless. "
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Fearless
Human
" 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
" Some of the greatest uprisings and consequent civil wars in Mexico have centered squarely on the ownership of land. "
Wole Soyinka
Greatest
Land
Mexico
" 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
Me
Process
" I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture. "
Wole Soyinka
Words
Where
Up
" I've done a lot of guerrilla theater in my time. "
Wole Soyinka
Time
Theater
My Time
" I'm an Afro-realist. I take what comes, and I do my best to affect what is unacceptable in society. "
Wole Soyinka
Take
Best
Society
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Time
World
Government
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Special
Write
Encourage
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Value
You
Amazing
" You cannot live a normal existence if you haven't taken care of a problem that affects your life and affects the lives of others, values that you hold which in fact define your very existence. "
Wole Soyinka
Values
Care
Life
" Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done. "
Wole Soyinka
Done
People
Work
" 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
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Culture
Stress
Strength
" 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. "
Wole Soyinka
Truth
Now
Community
" 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