Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole SoyinkaRead
I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The development of ideas is as crucial as the act of writing itself.
Wole Soyinka emphasizes that the creative process, including the time spent thinking, planning, and developing ideas, is equally important as the physical act of writing. This highlights the value of preparation and contemplation in the creative journey, suggesting that great work is built on a foundation of thoughtful gestation.
Themes
WritingCreativityIdeasProcessGestation
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote during a creative writing workshop to highlight the importance of idea development.
More from Wole Soyinka
All quotes →Trading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.
Wole SoyinkaRead
A war, with its attendant human suffering, must, when that evil is unavoidable, be made to fragment more than buildings: It must shatter the foundations of thought and re-create. Only in this way does every individual share in the cataclysm and understand the purpose of sacrifice.
Wole SoyinkaRead
Rwanda, which is one of the younger independent states in Africa, must be regarded as a model of how great human trauma can be transformed to commence true reconstruction of people. Human trauma can lead to stunted growth and mass withdrawal.
Wole SoyinkaRead
I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence.
Wole SoyinkaRead
Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
Wole SoyinkaRead
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There are some people who have been reading me for years, and they keep saying kind things about the writing. That's what you're writing for, to get people to respond to it.
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