Wole Soyinka
88 quotes
Biography
"There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people. I'm talking about a writer's critics, who don't address what you've written, but want to probe into your existence and magnify the trivia of your life without any sense of humor, without any sense of context."
"Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Rwanda has indicated that however thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, Rwanda has risen from the ashes as a model or truth and reconciliation."
"I take friendship very seriously."
"Romance is the sweetening of the soulWith fragrance offered by the stricken heart."
"I said: "A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces". In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: "I am a tiger". When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there."
"The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny."
"There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?"
"[T]he PDP, on whose platform he stands, represents the most harrowing of this nation’s nightmares over and beyond even the horrors of the Abacha regime. If he wishes to be considered on his own merit, now is time for him, as well as others similarly enmeshed, to exercise the moral courage that goes with his repudiation of that party, a dissociation from its past, and a pledge to reverse its menacing future. We shall find him an alternative platform on which to stand, and then have him present his credentials along those of other candidates engaged in forging a credible opposition alliance."
"The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism."
"Sidi feels empowered by seeing her beauty for the first time in the magazine prints. She recognizes that her beauty is a commodity, allowing her agency to make a future for herself. This is a novel idea: choosing one's own future is reserved for men."
"It is five full months since last / I took a wife"
"The greedy dog! Insatiate camel of a foolish, doting race."
"The accumulated heritage—that is what we are celebrating. Mali. Chaka. Songhai. Glory. Empires."
"I see we’ve got another of the good old days. Obaneji [on the contrary]."
"Will you take my case?"
"When you see a man hurrying, he has got a load on his back. Do you think I live emptily that I will take another's cause for pay or mercy?"
"The world is big, but the dead are bigger"
"This whole family business sickens me. Let everybody lead their own lives,""
"These rites of the dead. I do not know why you take them on,""
"Aroni has taken control. That is when the guilty become afraid."
"Adenebi becomes defensive and says, "Have you no feeling for those who died?""
"Why don't you confess it? You are the type who would rather die in your bed."
""I have a particular aversion to being mauled by women"
"Recognition is the curse I carry with me."
"Doesn't she look like the type that would drive men to madness and self-destruction?"