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I began writing early - very, very early... I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals I was involved in school plays I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, 'Now I'm a writer.' I've always been a writer.

Wole Soyinka

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Wole Soyinka
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: July 13
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Professor
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Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
Stories
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School
Poetry
Poems
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Wrote
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Radio
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Early
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More quotes by Wole Soyinka

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Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.
Wole Soyinka
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I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
Wole Soyinka
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The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
Wole Soyinka
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We live in the real world - we live within a certain history of the plague that has landed on us.
Wole Soyinka
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Let's say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don't think we have a new Nigeria yet.
Wole Soyinka
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People say human nature is a very vague expression, people tend to say human nature is corruptible anyway and it comes from a theological point of view, goes back to the Garden of Eden, that there is always this corrupt gene waiting to be activated that we inherited from the very beginning. I don't believe in that theological excuse.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
Wole Soyinka
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Everybody knows that fraternities are a normal culture in all colleges. It exists in all colleges. President Clinton was a member of a fraternity. In fact, anybody who goes to College in the United States is a member of a College fraternity. There is absolutely nothing evil or occultic about fraternity.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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When you fight corruption, corruption strikes back and that is the truth because when you fight corruption, you get confidence and when it gets to impunity, then it gets aggressive and says, 'oh, so you think you are different? You think you are tough and different?' This is why some of us are almost permanently in the libel court.
Wole Soyinka
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The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
Wole Soyinka
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I am a glutton for tranquility.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
Wole Soyinka
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The Egba kingdom was one of the very last to be ceded to the British protectorate. It remained almost an independent entity within what is now known as Nigeria, simply because of its own traditional structure of governance.
Wole Soyinka
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I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.
Wole Soyinka
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I grew up with a very strong sense of what is just and what is not or, to put it this way, I grew up with a keen sense of a division, the reality of a division of perception in people's lives between those who govern and those who govern.
Wole Soyinka
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Sadness is twilight's kiss on earth.
Wole Soyinka
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Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.
Wole Soyinka