Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole SoyinkaRead
There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a desire to be a different type of artist, highlighting the diversity in artistic expression.
Wole Soyinka reflects on the various forms of artistry and candidly admits a desire to embody a different type of artist. This statement suggests that while he appreciates his own craft, he feels an admiration or yearning for the qualities or impact of other artistic personas, emphasizing the complexity and individuality inherent in artistic expression.
Themes
ArtistCreativityExpressionDesireDiversity
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop for aspiring artists discussing the challenges of artistic identity.
More from Wole Soyinka
All quotes βTrading 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
Similar quotes
I consciously think about the ethnicity of every character that I create and cast. But one thing that is equally important is quality representation. It's not enough to put an African-American in there, a female in there, a gay character in there: How significant is their contribution? Can they drive the story?
Daniel Dae KimRead
Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.
Rabindranath TagoreRead
When I grew up, what was interesting for me was that music was color and life was gray. So music for me has always been more than entertainment.
Pete TownshendRead
Every scene, even the commonest, is wonderful, if only one can detach oneself, casting off all memory of use and custom, and behold it (as it were) for the first time; in its right, authentic colors; without making comparisons. Cherish and burnish this faculty of seeing crudely, simply, artlessly, ignorantly; of seeing like a baby or a lunatic, who lives each moment by itself and tarnishes by the present no remembrance of the past.
Arnold BennettRead
I put steam on the table by being an actor. That is how I live. The longer I live, the more expensive it becomes. So I do my work. And I can't be immensely picky. How many beautiful scripts come in one's lifetime? I have had more than anybody, practically.
Peter O'TooleRead
The distinction between a gallery and a museum is enormous. The gallery is about looking at a thing of beauty; the purpose of the activity is an aesthetic response. The museum is actually about the object that lets you get into somebody else's life.
Neil MacgregorRead