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

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I am a very curious person I'll always ask: is this thing true, is it not true? And I use my own means to investigate and come to my conclusion.
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. . . as far as the regime is concerned, well, the play is sheer terror for them. Because they feel, How dare - how dare anybody lift his or her voice in criticism against us? We have the guns. Their level of paranoia and power-drunkenness is unbelievable.
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When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.
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I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
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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.
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We live in the real world - we live within a certain history of the plague that has landed on us.
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The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
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Obasanjo has openly endorsed violence as a means of governance, embraced and empowered individuals whose avowed declarations, confessions and acts are cynically contrary to the mandate that alone upholds the legitimacy and dignity of his office.
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It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own salvation.
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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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The writer is the visionary of his people... He anticipates, he warns.
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I never hesitated, as a student, in embracing the necessity of violence. In South Africa, I didn't just accept it I looked forward to it as a mission.
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And gradually they're beginning to recognize the fact that there's nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it's sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.
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One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
Wole Soyinka
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African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.
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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
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There's something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle.
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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.
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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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Society itself is responsible for the degradation.
Wole Soyinka