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My father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep. When the children would gather, at a certain point, I had a tendency to make up my own elementary variations on stories I had heard, or to invent totally new ones.

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
Used
Totally
Elementary
Children
Ones
Variation
Make
Heard
Gather
Would
Point
Invent
Father
Asleep
Tell
Tendency
Stories
Tendencies
Certain
Fell
Variations

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Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
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The idea of having to make constant reference to politics is anathema to my calling as a writer.
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Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
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We do not ask the mountain's aid to crack a walnut.
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But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.
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Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
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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.
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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.
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Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.
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Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it's in there.
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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.
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Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
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When you are looking for corruption, you should look at the entire stratum of the society, while some forms of corruption are direct, others are indirect.
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If you are corrupt and you have extra cash you are able to shut the mouth of your accuser and they will be silenced.
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There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.
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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.
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Intolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it's the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.
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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.
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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.
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