Latest Wole Soyinka Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• If I were sure I would pass the physicals, I would be on the next space shuttle to Mars or some other planet. I'll leave the calculations and the navigational tasks to you while I bask in your ingenuity. Find me a place in the capsule and watch me outdo Michael Jackson's moonwalk to the music of the spheres.

  Wole Soyinka

  Watch Me, Ingenuity, Find Me

  Source: www.lindau-nobel.org

• How do I feel when I am invited to a congregation of scientists? I feel quite at home. When they break into their cultic scientific argot, I know when I'm not wanted and step out for a drink.

  Wole Soyinka

  Home, Drink, Scientist

  Source: www.lindau-nobel.org

• Arts and the Sciences are a natural symbiosis. They stem from the same human existential impulse - exploration. Exploration of what lies beneath the surface, and re-confuguration of elements of what we call reality.

  Wole Soyinka

  Art, Lying, Reality

  Source: www.lindau-nobel.org

• I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.

  Wole Soyinka

  Believe, I Believe, Language

  Source: whatsonafrica.org

• You accept whoever you are interacting with, directly, or indirectly.

  Wole Soyinka

  Accepting

  Source: whatsonafrica.org

• My definition of slavery is the deprivation of human volition, any form of relationship between two peoples which is based on the deprivation of volition of one side.

  Wole Soyinka

  Slavery

  Source: whatsonafrica.org

• In European and American society, many pundits started to lament the death of literature; looking at youth who were getting more and more attracted to sitcoms - hard, adventure films and said, our children are no longer reading, or else they're reading cartoons.

  Wole Soyinka

  Children, Reading, Adventure

  Source: whatsonafrica.org

• There's a lot of insincerity about the actions of our legislators; they create distractions - like this anti-gay law you alluded to - and try to mobilise, to exacerbate people's emotions. Until the legislators started making laws, people minded, generally, their own business.

  Wole Soyinka

  People, Trying, Action

  Source: whatsonafrica.org

• When I say war, I'm not talking about mental war; I'm talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.

  Wole Soyinka

  Children, War, Obstacles

  Source: whatsonafrica.org

• We live in the real world - we live within a certain history of the plague that has landed on us.

  Wole Soyinka

  Real, World, Real World

  Source: whatsonafrica.org

• I think the epicentre of terrorism whether you call it cesspit or whatever you want to call it, shift, if you asked me a while ago, I would have said Somalia, Somalia has quietened a bit - and I think the epicentre right now is in Northern Nigeria.

  Wole Soyinka

  Thinking, Terrorism, Nigeria

  Source: whatsonafrica.org

• Sadly however, I discovered in one particular case that a colleague went and paid the bribe on my behalf, just to get our mission fulfilled. That was painful, and it strained our friendship.

  Wole Soyinka

  Painful, Bribe

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• Pity you can't be present during my periodic fault-finding sessions with my image in the mirror!

  Wole Soyinka

  Pity

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• Society itself is responsible for the degradation.

  Wole Soyinka

  Responsible

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth.

  Wole Soyinka

  Responsibility

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• I am disturbed for instance when I read that a candidate said, 'I will not probe anybody or something like that'. You don't fight corruption by sweeping everything under the carpet, you don't.

  Wole Soyinka

  Fighting, Corruption, Disturbed

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• To achieve any change in the minds of the youth, there must be reorientation in terms of materialistic tendencies, corruption and crime generally.

  Wole Soyinka

  Mind, Youth, Materialistic

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.

  Wole Soyinka

  Giving, Organizational, No Money

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• When you start a political party, you are creating space for yourself. So many people were shocked when they realized that I was serious and had no interest in occupying any political position, so they started to fall out one by one.

  Wole Soyinka

  Party, Fall, People

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• When I tried to create a new political party, which I stressed that this is not my party. I believe very much that there has to be a revolution and this is a party for the young.

  Wole Soyinka

  Party, Believe, Political

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• It is the human potentials that interest me. I travel and everywhere I go I am amazed at the presence of Nigerians. The intelligence, integrity, productivity, initiative.

  Wole Soyinka

  Integrity, Initiative, Interest

  Source: secure.saharareporters.com

• Alfred Nobel regretted that his invention, dynamite, was converted to degrading use, hence his creation of the Nobel Prize, as the humanist counter to the destructive power of his genius.

  Wole Soyinka

  Genius, Creation, Invention

  Source: ynaija.com

• We all have our individual artistic temperaments as well as partisanships in creative directions. And we have strong opinions on the merits of the products of our occupation.

  Wole Soyinka

  Strong, Creative, Opinion

  Source: ynaija.com

• Writers - human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.

  Wole Soyinka

  Thinking, Sometimes

  Source: ynaija.com

• We wasted a lot of creative energy in that immediate post colonial era, when there was a struggle between, you know, the Cold War between the capitalism and communism. Many writers just wasted their energy and their talent because they want to be ideologically correct and of course all they produced was propaganda.

  Wole Soyinka

  War, Struggle, Creative

  Source: www.nobelprize.org