Quotes by Wole Soyinka

Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.

Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.

Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.

But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That’s why I call it the most social of the various art forms.

There’s a kind of dynamic quality about theater and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it’s being staged then the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the audience.

My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.

I’m not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I’ve never understood.

And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.

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?

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.