Wole Soyinka Quotes

Ours is a strong breed my son. It is only a strong breed that can take this boat to the river year after year and wax stronger on it. I have taken down each year’s evils for over twenty years. I hoped you would follow me.

Everyone is linked, all our actions have ramifications, and music is a teacher of this interconnected reality.

Will you take my case?

The very least we can live with is an agreement that does not reduce us to slaves of imposition, but makes us partners of consent.

England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there....We should assemble all those who are pure and cannot abide other faiths, put them all in rockets, and fire them into space.....A virus has attacked the world of sense and sensibility, and it has spread to Nigeria....The assumption of power over life and death then passed to every single inconsequential Muslim in the world-as if someone had given them a new stature...Al Qaeda is the descendent of this phenomenon. The proselytization of Islam became vigorous after this. People went to Saudi Arabia. Madrassas were established everywhere.

It is five full months since last / I took a wife

When a squirrel seeks sanctuary up the iroko tree the hunter's chase is ended.

This whole family business sickens me. Let everybody lead their own lives,"

Sadiku, I am young and brimming; he is spent. / I am the twinkle of a jewel / But he is the hind-quarters of a lion!

Only a foolish child lets a father prostrate to him.

Come January 20, 2017; watch my WOLEXIT

...the Christian world is not one, neither is the Islamic, nor does their combined authority speak to or for the entire world, but the world of the fanatic IS one and it cuts across all religions, ideologies and vocations.

the contemporary novel . . . I've read one or two: Rushdie, I've enjoyed, again, exceptionally, Marquez, I love his works: that's another exception. Bessie Head: I found her novels very, very gripping, fascinating, challenging, really intellectually intriguing. Then that black American woman writer, Toni Morrison, the author of Sula, Song of Solomon: she's a fascinating writer. Umberto Eco . . . But generally I don't read novels.

I have always held the view that when you have that situation, you must refuse to be part of it

There is peace in being a stranger.