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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Wole Soyinka

Commitment

Time

Space

" We Nigerians must reclaim our sovereignty, our civic entitlements. "

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

" 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.' "

" 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. "

Wole Soyinka

Depression

Meet

" A tiger does not shout its tigritude, it acts. "

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

Wole Soyinka

Something

Religious

" The phenomenon of creativity, we know, is closely related to the ability to yoke together separate, and even seemingly incompatible, matrices. "

" A war, with its attendant human suffering, must, when that evil is unavoidable, be made to fragment more than buildings: It must shatter the foundations of thought and re-create. Only in this way does every individual share in the cataclysm and understand the purpose of sacrifice. "

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

" 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. "

" My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being. "

Wole Soyinka

Reading

Music

" There's something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle. "

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

" The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist. "

" 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. "

" Education is lacking in most of those who pontificate. "

" Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness. "

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

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

" 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

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

" Some people think the Nobel Prize makes you bullet-proof. I never had that illusion. "

" 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. "

" Just like birds, hunters know no borders. "

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

" 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. "

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

Wole Soyinka

Words

Where

" 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

" 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. "