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

And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
Wole Soyinka

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

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.
Wole Soyinka

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.
Wole Soyinka

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

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

I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
Wole Soyinka

I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
Wole Soyinka

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


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

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

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.
Wole Soyinka

Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done.
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.
Wole Soyinka

One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
Wole Soyinka

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.
Wole Soyinka

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

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.
Wole Soyinka

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
Wole Soyinka