Quotes by Wole Soyinka

• But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.
• Even when I'm writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for.
• 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.
• 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 consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
• I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
• 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 grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.
• 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.
• 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.
• Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done.
• One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
• Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
• Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
• The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
• The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
• The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
• 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.
• And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
• 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.
• 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.
• Well, first of all I'll say that I come alive best in theater.
• 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.
• 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.
• There's something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle.
• 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.
• There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.