There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.
From Wole Soyinka
Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done.
The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.
Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.
I cannot belong to a nation which permits such barbarities as stoning to death and amputation - I don't care what religion it is.
I began writing early - very, very early... I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals; I was involved in school plays; I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, 'Now I'm a writer.' I've always been a writer.
When I write plays, I'm already seeing the shapes on stage, of the actors and their interaction, and so on and so forth. I don't think I've ever written one play as an abstract piece, as a literary piece, floating in the air somewhere, to be flushed out later on.
Some people think the Nobel Prize makes you bullet-proof. I never had that illusion.
Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.
Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
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