Zitat des Tages von Wole Soyinka:
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.
No writer has a right to make that much money. Indeed, without diabolical assistance, no writer can.
I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
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.
Some of the greatest uprisings and consequent civil wars in Mexico have centered squarely on the ownership of land.
In the world of literature, I see prizes as more of a duty to the craft itself, rather than as something for the individual.
Seven is the magic figure, because that's a symbolic figure of my favorite deity, Ogun.
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.
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.
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.
The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.
I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
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.
I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
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.
Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.
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.
One has to confront history honestly.
England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows 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.
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.
And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.
Even when I'm writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for.
We Nigerians must reclaim our sovereignty, our civic entitlements.
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.
One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
Well, first of all I'll say that I come alive best in theater.
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.
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.
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.
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?
