Ben Okri Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• It may be that what you could be haunts you. It is real. It is a weight you have to carry around. Each failure to become, to be, is a weight. Each state you could inhabit is a burden as heavy as any physical weight, but more so, because it weighs on your soul. It is the ghost of your possibilities hanging around your neck, an invisible albatros, potentials unknowingly murdered.

  Ben Okri

  Real, Soul, Necks

  12 Copy quote

• I was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would keep one another interested, and you weren't allowed to tell stories that everybody else knew. You had to dream up new ones.

  Ben Okri

  Dream, Children, Kids

  "Ben Okri", www.theguardian.com. July 22, 2008.

  11 Copy quote

• We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.

  Ben Okri

  Dream, Fate, Destiny

  Ben Okri (2014). “Astonishing the Gods”, Head of Zeus

  29 Copy quote

• The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

  Ben Okri

  Past, Together, Jazz

  "Magical Ben Okri casts a spell on his readers". Interview with Nima Elbagir, edition.cnn.com. June 28, 2011.

  13 Copy quote

• Ghetto-dwellers are the great fantasists. There was an extraordinary vibrancy there, an imaginative life. When you are that poor, all you've got left is your belief in the imagination.

  Ben Okri

  Ghetto, Imagination, Vibrancy

  9 Copy quote

• We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see.

  Ben Okri

  Ignorance, Simple, Parent

  "The Famished Road". Book by Ben Okri, 1991.

  9 Copy quote

• What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings? The only hope is in the creation of alternative values, alternative realities. The only hope is in daring to redream one's place in the world - a beautiful act of imagination, and a sustained act of self becoming. Which is to say that in some way or another we breach and confound the accepted frontiers of things.

  Ben Okri

  Beautiful, Reality, Gun

  13 Copy quote

• I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile.

  Ben Okri

  Squares, Order, Your Smile

  Ben Okri (1992). “An African elegy”, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life, his largeness of spirit. The characters of Turgenev are ghetto dwellers. Dickens characters are Nigerians.

  Ben Okri

  Country, Character, Ghetto

  62 Copy quote

• a dream can be the highest point of a life

  Ben Okri

  Dream, Highest

  Ben Okri (2015). “The Famished Road”, p.574, Random House

  7 Copy quote

• The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.

  Ben Okri

  Law, Police, World

  Ben Okri (2014). “A Way of Being Free”, p.6, Head of Zeus

  4 Copy quote

• One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. We had a bit of a rollercoaster life with some really challenging financial periods. He was always unshaken, completely tranquil, the same ebullient, laughing, jovial man.

  Ben Okri

  Fathers Day, Courage, Adversity

  "Ben Okri: My family values". Interview with Juliet Rix, www.theguardian.com. June 25, 2010.

  14 Copy quote

• Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.

  Ben Okri

  Expression, Silence, Enemy

  7 Copy quote

• The higher the artist, the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools, the greater the imagination. The greater the will, the greater the secret failure.

  Ben Okri

  Artist, Imagination, Secret

  Ben Okri (2014). “A Way of Being Free”, p.69, Head of Zeus

  7 Copy quote

• You are a mischievous one. You will cause no end of trouble. You have to travel many roads before you find the river of your destiny. This life of yours will be full of riddles. You will be protected and you will never be alone.

  Ben Okri

  Destiny, Rivers, Causes

  "The Famished Road". Book by Ben Okri, March 14, 1991.

  9 Copy quote

• If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom.

  Ben Okri

  Dancer, Spirit, Afraid To Love

  Ben Okri (2014). “A Way of Being Free”, p.51, Head of Zeus

  5 Copy quote

• The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

  Ben Okri

  Writing, Reader

  "Magical Ben Okri casts a spell on his readers". Interview with Nima Elbagir, edition.cnn.com. June 28, 2011.

  6 Copy quote

• We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings.

  Ben Okri

  Mean, Humanity, Fiction

  52 Copy quote

• Don't read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.

  Ben Okri

  Reading, Checks

  4 Copy quote

• To see the madness and yet walk a perfect silver line. ... That's what the true story-teller should be: a great guide, a clear mind, who can walk a silver line in hell or madness.

  Ben Okri

  Perfect, Mind, Stories

  5 Copy quote

• I learned that life will go through changes - up and down and up again. It's what life does.

  Ben Okri

  Doe, Down And, Up And Down

  "Ben Okri: My family values". Interview with Juliet Rix, www.theguardian.com. June 25, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument.

  Ben Okri

  Eras, Deities, Chaos

  Ben Okri (2015). “Stars Of The New Curfew”, p.71, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• I know that human beings are capable of anything.

  Ben Okri

  Humans, Knows, Human Beings

  4 Copy quote

• I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable.

  Ben Okri

  Miserable, Homeless, Wit

  9 Copy quote

• To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.

  Ben Okri

  Home, Homeless

  4 Copy quote

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