A biography for Wole Soyinkahasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“You always assume for some strange reason that you need three meals a day.”
“African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.”
“I'm an Afro-realist. I take what comes, and I do my best to affect what is unacceptable in society.”
“I don't have the sort of temperament that submits to Christianity or Islam.”
“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.”
“Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done.”
“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.”
“Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.”
“The writer is the visionary of his people... He anticipates, he warns.”
“Seven is the magic figure, because that's a symbolic figure of my favorite deity, Ogun.”
“Just like birds, hunters know no borders.”
“I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.”
“A tiger does not shout its tigritude, it acts.”
“Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.”
“I don't know any other way to live but to wake up every day armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.”
“Writing in certain environments carries with it an occupational risk.”
“The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.”
“In Africa, those who have money - businessmen and banks - do not believe in film.”
“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.”