Quote

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

Wole Soyinka

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Wole Soyinka
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: July 13
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Professor
Translator
Writer
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
Kind
Frank
Kinds
Artists
Wish
Often
Artist
Different

More quotes by Wole Soyinka

Image
As I grew older and more mature, I've been able to move beyond the immediate response of violence to a projection of the pragmatic, political consequences of that violence. So it's an effort to attain equilibrium.
Wole Soyinka
Image
I happen to be unfortunately temperamental. No, my temperament is also, what you describe to rainfalls, the will of society, to combat a number of contradictions. That happens to be my creative temperament.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Well, some people say I'm pessimistic because I recognize the eternal cycle of evil. All I say is, look at the history of mankind right up to this moment and what do you find?
Wole Soyinka
Image
We do not ask the mountain's aid to crack a walnut.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
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?
Wole Soyinka
Image
I believe that prizes are useful things for the disciplines, whether we are talking about chemistry or we're talking... It motivates, it, you know, inspires, it encourages and it brings, in the case of literature, it brings literature, the arts out of the ghetto.
Wole Soyinka
Image
I said: A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces. In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: I am a tiger. When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there.
Wole Soyinka
Image
I tend to work best as a one-man Task Force, including even the roles of messenger, coffee maker and office cleaner.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
I know there are writers who get up every morning and sit by their typewriter or word processor or pad of paper and wait to write. I don't function that way. I go through a long period of gestation before I'm even ready to write.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
Wole Soyinka
Image
After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.
Wole Soyinka
Image
My understanding of the creative process is simply that all cultures and all concerns meet at a certain point, the human point in which everything is related to one another. That has been my creative experience.
Wole Soyinka
Image
A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
You have the entire gamut of human experience captured in the mythology of the Yoruba. This is what makes the Yoruba mythology a natural source material for me in my creative endeavours.
Wole Soyinka
Image
We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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