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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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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
Pride
Colonialism
Gives
Imperial
Sort
Undertake
Feeling
Bred
Feelings
Innate
Take
Openness
Giving
Arrogance
Way
Adventure

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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.
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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.
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Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
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Religion has really spawned some monsters. It always has, historically. Go all the way back to the Inquisition, you know, the Crusades, the Jehad and so on.
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Society itself is responsible for the degradation.
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I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
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We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
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You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.'
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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.
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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.
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What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that's my function, but from time to time it's possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.
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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.
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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.
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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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There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda.
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It's the place to begin, always -- to return to home, literally.
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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.
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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.
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The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
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The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
Wole Soyinka